Filed under: iPhone
iPhone to Windows Mobile: Eat my dust
ComScore has released a list of the top smartphone operating systems by market share in the United States in October. Who's on top? Research in Motion (but for how much longer?), followed by Apple, then Microsoft, Palm, Symbian, and finally Google.The guys at FierceDeveloper have put together this nifty chart showing the top smartphone operating systems by number of active users in the United States in October, based on comScore's data.
What's interesting about comScore's latest number is it's the first time iPhone OS market share has surpassed Windows Mobile. According to the data, approximately 36 million Americans are smartphone owners, with 40% of those owning Blackberries and 25% owning iPhones. Windows Mobile share has shrunk to 20% and with the increasing popularity of the iPhone and Google's Android OS, it's not looking too hot for WinMo.
Below: the chart of comScore's data. The yellow bars are the most recent statistics.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
marco said 2:42PM on 12-17-2009
Only a matter of time before Google is second or maybe even first...
Apple needs to keep up with the Buggy OS and people like myself will switch boats.
Reply
ProfessorDex said 3:20PM on 12-17-2009
Sorry, Google will never hit first or even second. Android is nice, but it will never hit mainstream like RIM and Apple have.
Jordan said 4:07PM on 12-17-2009
@ProfessorDex: You sure about that?
oZ said 4:25PM on 12-17-2009
People said the same thing about Apple before, except it was "Palm, Microsoft and RIM". Things change, and if Google keeps their steady improvement, Apple needs to continue innovating. Not to mention the constant improvements happening right now in Symbian and Maemo.
Joseph said 5:46PM on 12-17-2009
my sentiments exactly. I wonder what the recent data says.
Apple makes a great phone, but the map is killing ATT and by relation apple. We will see what happens in June when their contract expires.
If the googlephone makes use of google voice and gets a CDMA version to boot, I think everyone will be in trouble. Android is good, but the nexus stuff is the future of googlemobile.
freeskihp said 2:50PM on 12-17-2009
blurring out a ford logo when right above it is a huge banner ad?
Reply
Level 5 said 3:19PM on 12-17-2009
Only using the US for data is sort of skewed. The numbers are true, yes, but when you shift to the world stage, Apple has about 13%, and Symbian (dead last in the US) has over 50% of market share. Also, WinMo has had about 9% share for the past year, iPhoneOS had already passed it on a worldwide bases for some time now.
Reply
ProfessorDex said 3:22PM on 12-17-2009
The World revolves around the US though. Make sure you have a bullet proof vest on before trying to tell them it doesn't!!
nitrous9200 said 4:56PM on 12-17-2009
@ProfessorDex
Shut up. :D
Level 5 said 11:30AM on 12-18-2009
Dex,
That's untrue in this case; look at the huge chunk with Symbian on the global stage vs the US? Not even close.
Ben Treston said 6:47PM on 12-17-2009
Love the WRC pic! Nice to see!
But also good to hear Windows Mobile dying a (slow) death.. that product is dire...
Reply
ProfessorDex said 10:53AM on 12-18-2009
I couldn't agree more. It's about time Windows Mobile was taken out behind the barn and put out of it's misery!
Level 5 said 11:29AM on 12-18-2009
There's positively a market for WinMo. However, MS needs to give it a ground up re-do. There's alot of folks who need to edit MS Office docs on the go, and Microsoft has always provided that. The OS has always had alot of potential, but very poor execution. Until Android there really wasn't an OS you could customize as much as WinMo, and even then you must either root it, or if you're bold enough to jailbreak your iPhone that was a possibility.
MS proved that they can make an effective UI. Bring the elements from the ZuneHD into WM, and seal off Office exclusivity so only WM devices could get it on a mobile platform, and MS may have a winner. Unless WM fans get something drastic though, it's so archaic in comparison. It's a little painful being a WinMo fan when we see ZuneHD users get what smartphones with MS's wares SHOULD had been getting.
Oh.. and, I have a Windows Phone. So no hate, just facts.
Matthew said 11:11AM on 12-18-2009
a line chart would have been far more intuitive
PS google is going to explode if these rumors of an iphone killer are true, though it will take several years before they have a hope of overtaking the leaders i believe.
Reply
AaronW said 8:13PM on 12-18-2009
Please for the love of god don't say "iPhone Killer" in my presence. Most of the "iPhone Killers" have crashed and burned with a few minor exceptions. Even if the googlephone is better, that term just implies that they are trying to make a iPhone competitor, not something actually better than the iPhone. I don't want something just as good and similar to the iPhone. I want something totally different and better in it's own way.
A good example of this kind of "Its just like an iPhone, but better!" marketing can be seen in the "Windows Phone" ad at the top of this page. They took WinMo and tossed in a shitty touch screen and similar interface and market it like an iPhone. This is exactly what a lot of the other handset makers are trying to do, and it works out terribly most of the time.
Google voice is awesome. If google makes a phone and allows this service, free of charge (unlikely it will be free down the road), they will make me change my service and buy their handset.
I don't care if it looks like an iPhone, I just require the "feel" of the iPhone. the interface can be totally different, I just want it to feel as smooth as the iPhone feels.
recap:
iPhone Killer=bad
iPhone wannabe marketing=bad
goooglephone original concept and design=good
googlephone google voice service=good
Dan Woods said 6:54PM on 12-19-2009
RIM still do have decent Growth, as do the other players (besides MS).
It'd be interesting to see what Smartphone usage is like Globally.
Symbian Smartphones like the N95 and Nokia E-series phones have traditionally been huge because they have been much easier than WinMo and the learning curve from Series40 Handsets to Symbian was smoother.
The iPhone has blown them all out of the water WRT ease of use. I'd also like to see Handset vs Smartphone comparisons too.
Reply
Reginald E Johnson said 10:26PM on 12-20-2009
One of the reasons that Apple works so well is that they keep third parties from fooling around their software and OS! That is why Google and other open source software people will start to get viruses and buggy software, They have too many people in there fooling around and tweaking the system and it all adds up to a mess. They had a post on here why Apple stopped a app from the App store. Apple checked out the app and found it was sending your info to third parties! You will have no such guaratee from Android. That is why my Macbook Pro and Iphone work so well! Just one cook instead of thousands!
Reply