The Smartphone Wars: Still It Rises
<p>I&#8217;ve been meaning to put together a running plot of U.S. smartphone marketshare for some time.  The monthly press release from the market research firm comScore contain enough information to do it, but you have to stitch a number of them together as they only report the covered month and the third previous month.  Stitching all the data together is actually rather revealing.</p>
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<p>First, the raw numbers.  All the rows are market share percentages except the last, &#8220;Smartphones&#8221;, which is the total size of the smartphone userbase in millions.  The March 2010 figures are missing because of a retrieval glitch on the comScore website; I&#8217;ve been promised the relevant document will be restored and the numbers mailed to me.</p>
<table border='1'>
<tr>
<td>O/S </td>
<td>Dec 2009</td>
<td>Jan 2010</td>
<td>Feb 2010</td>
<td>Mar 2010</td>
<td>Apr 2010</td>
<td>May 2010</td>
<td>Jun 2010</td>
<td>Jul 2010</td>
<td>Aug 2010</td>
<td>Sep 2010</td>
<td>Oct 2010</td>
<td>Nov 2010</td>
<td>Dec 2010</td>
<td>Jan 2011</td>
<td>Feb 2011</td>
<td>Mar 2011</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Google</td>
<td>5.2</td>
<td>7.1</td>
<td>9.0</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>12.0</td>
<td>13.0</td>
<td>14.9</td>
<td>17.0</td>
<td>19.6</td>
<td>21.4</td>
<td>23.5</td>
<td>26.0</td>
<td>28.7</td>
<td>31.2</td>
<td>33.0</td>
<td>34.7</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>RIM</td>
<td>41.6</td>
<td>43.0</td>
<td>42.1</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>41.1</td>
<td>41.7</td>
<td>40.1</td>
<td>39.3</td>
<td>37.6</td>
<td>37.3</td>
<td>35.8</td>
<td>33.5</td>
<td>31.6</td>
<td>30.4</td>
<td>28.9</td>
<td>27.1</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Apple</td>
<td>25.3</td>
<td>25.1</td>
<td>25.4</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>25.1</td>
<td>24.4</td>
<td>24.3</td>
<td>23.8</td>
<td>24.2</td>
<td>24.3</td>
<td>24.6</td>
<td>25.0</td>
<td>25.0</td>
<td>24.7</td>
<td>25.2</td>
<td>25.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>MS</td>
<td>18.0</td>
<td>15.7</td>
<td>15.1</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>14.0</td>
<td>13.2</td>
<td>12.8</td>
<td>11.8</td>
<td>10.8   </td>
<td>9.9</td>
<td>9.7</td>
<td>9.0</td>
<td>8.4</td>
<td>8.0</td>
<td>7.7</td>
<td>7.5</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Palm</td>
<td>6.1</td>
<td>5.7</td>
<td>5.4</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>4.9</td>
<td>4.8</td>
<td>4.7</td>
<td>4.9</td>
<td>4.6</td>
<td>4.2</td>
<td>3.9</td>
<td>3.9</td>
<td>3.7</td>
<td>3.2</td>
<td>2.8</td>
<td>2.8</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Smartphones</td>
<td>39.4</td>
<td>42.7</td>
<td>45.4</td>
<td>-</td>
<td>48.1</td>
<td>49.1</td>
<td>49.9</td>
<td>53.4</td>
<td>55.7</td>
<td>58.7</td>
<td>60.7</td>
<td>61.5</td>
<td>63.2</td>
<td>65.8</td>
<td>69.5</td>
<td>72.5</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><a href="http://esr.ibiblio.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/marketshare-mar2010-2.png"><img src="http://esr.ibiblio.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/marketshare-mar2010-2.png" alt="" title="marketshare-mar2010-2" width="640" height="480" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-3232" /></a></p>
<p>It&#8217;s unclear what&#8217;s going on with Apple, but there are a couple of conspicuous absences in its trend.  There&#8217;s no bump from the iPhone 4V release at the beginning of February, and no obvious effect from all those cheap 3GS refurbs that AT&#038;T has been flogging.  It looks rather as if Apple marketing is running as fast as it can to stay in place, and not very much as though Apple is capturing a lot of dumbphone conversions.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ll update these figures and post another plot when the April report comes out.  In the meantime, talk amongst yourselves.</p>
<p>UPDATES:  I was able to get more historical numbers, clear back to December 2009, and one of my records has calculated a good estimate of one I was missing from comScore&#8217;s data.  The post has been revised accordingly.</p>