Windows Phone to close in on iPhone by 2017

Summary: Microsoft and its partners are starting to operate on all cylinders and Canalys forecasts show Windows Phone market share nearly matching Apple's iPhone by 2017.

(Image: Nokia)

As Jack wrote yesterday there looks to be no slowing down for Android in the smartphone world, but another non-Apple company is predicted to make major advancements in the next four years.

While forecasts in the mobile space are difficult to make since things move so fast, I find it encouraging to see Canalys predict that Windows Phone will rise to secure third place and even closely match Apple and the iPhone by 2017.

(Image: Canalys)

We have seen Apple's market share stay fairly flat for some time, likely because a single, very expensive iPhone is released once a year while we see devices across the pricing and quality spectrum running Android and Windows Phone.

I wrote about the falling average selling price and the flip from feature phones to smartphones this year and moving forward. We will see growth from the four major smartphone platforms moving forward, but Windows Phone is predicted to have the largest change in market share.

Windows Phone has taken nearly three years to get to about 3 percent, but with things like Halo for Windows Phone, flagship devices on major US carriers, and low cost, full-featured phones Microsoft is doing the right things to position themselves for success.

Matthew Miller started using a Pilot 1000 in 1997 and has been writing news, reviews, and opinion pieces ever since.

IDC: Smartphones will eventually surpass feature phone shipments in 2013

The mobile industry is on the verge of a major turning point, according to a new report from the International Data Corporation.

See also: Canalys forecasts one billion Android smartphone sales in 2017 and rapid growth for Windows Phone

Market intelligence company reported on Tuesday that global smartphone shipments are expected to reach approximately 958.8 million units.

It is a 32.7 percent increase from 722.5 million units in 2012.

More important, IDC analyst predicted that this will be the year that smartphones surpass feature phones in total cell phone shipments all over the world.

Specifically, analysts expect that smartphones will account for 52.2 percent of all mobile phone shipments by the end of 2013.

Ramon Llamas, a research manager at IDC mobile devices team, stressed the importance of this shift in the report goes so far as to describe 2013 as a "watershed year for smartphones."

If you look at the number of vendors that support both feature phones and smartphones, many of them have not only successfully transferred their product portfolios to select smartphones, but smartphones have become their primary value proposition going forward. In some cases, smartphones accounted for over 50% of their quarterly shipment volume. Going forward, we expect that the gap between smartphones and feature phones to grow ever wider.

IDC's report on Tuesday is similar with another published by IHS iSuppli last november. The forecast use NAND Flash memory concerned in particular, signaling a major SHIFT that will directly affect the supply chain partners as soon as this year.

However, Nielsen issued an industry survey in January 2013, positing that smartphones still have "room to grow" in several top emerging markets at least.

As for six months ago found Nielsen to feature phones, which researchers defined as "devices without touch screen, QWERTY keyboard and operating system" is far more dominant in India and Russia, covering 80 per cent and 51 per cent of mobile users, respectively.

Chart via IDC

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Windows Phone climbing in the United Kingdom, but cheap androids reign in Spain and Italy

Windows Phone market share continues to inch up in the UK, but sub-150 € androids reign in Spain and Italy.

According to research by Kantar Worldpanel grown Windows Phone share of the smartphone market in the three months to April from four percent a year ago to 8.4 per cent, likely led by sales of Nokia devices.

Nokia's Fellow third-place contender Blackberry meanwhile has seen its shares tumble, from 13.6 percent last year to 5.6 percent of the smartphone market during the latest quarter.

Android still dominates in UK with 56.9 percent of sales, up 4.2 percentage points compared with the corresponding period of last year. It is followed by the iOS with 28.7 percent, down by 1.6 points every year.

The edges are 177,000 interviews with consumers in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Spain for their most recent report, which found the large Windows Phone share over five is now 6.7 percent, up three percentage points each year, while Blackberry is now 2.5 percent, down 4.3 percentage points.

All five countries, iOS for 18.4 per cent of sales, down 1.8 percentage points on the year – iOS has seen a year-on-year decline in the share of iOS in all markets except France, where it grew 1.2 percent points each year to 20.1 per cent — while Android at 69.6 per cent were up 9.5 percentage points.

The different States of each country's economy seems to shape the smartphone sales in Europe, according to Kantar's global insight Director Dominic Sunnebo, noting that Samsung Galaxy S3 accounted for only 4.7 percent of sales in Spain compared with 23.5% in Germany during the three-month period.

"Increase the desire for phones that cost under € 150 in Spain and Italy has helped Sony and LG to push serious percentage gains. In Spain, Sony has 19 percent and LG is up to 17 percent from just three percent in the previous year, "Sunnebo wrote, pointing to the vendor entry level units, Sony Xperia you and LG Optimus L3 and L5 models.

Androids accounted for 92.8 per cent of sales in Spain and 66.7 percent in Italy, up 11.7 and 11.7 percentage points respectively each year.

Sunnebo told ZDNet that Nokia to deal with cash-strapped Spain and, above all, Italy – where its share of sales is 10.5 percent — by discounted older products such as Lumia 800 and 610. Meanwhile, Nokia's UK sales leads with 620 and 820.

According to Kantar, has Windows Phone share of turnover also increased in the United States, which accounted for 5.6 percent of sales, up from 3.8 percent a year ago, largely driven by Nokia's Lumia devices. Nokia recently said it expected to ship more than seven million Lumia phones worldwide in the second quarter of this year.

Android still dominates in the United States, grows each year from 50.3 percent to 51.7 percent, while iOS rose 2.3 percentage points to 41.4 percent. BlackBerry sales for the three months to April, accounted for only 0.7 percent, according to Kantar.