According to the research firm iSuppli, more smartphones will be using the Android operating system by 2012 than are using the Apple iOS.
Google recently announced 200,000 Android phones being activated each day.
iSuppli says Android will be used in 75 million smartphones in 2012, up 1500 percent from 2009, when 5 million Android devices were sold.
In the same period, Apple iOS devices will jump to 62 million from 25 million.
At that time, Android would control 19.4 percent of the global smartphone market while Apple would have just under 16 percent.
“The flexibility Android offers for hardware designs and its appealing business model in terms of revenue sharing have attracted vigorous support from all nodes in the value chain, including makers of high-end smart phone models,” says iSuppli senior analyst Tina Teng.
Result for: phone models
Nokia, the world’s largest mobile phone maker, has announced it will be cutting its smartphone offering in half next year, despite losing market share to rivals RIM and Apple.
“We see … really fierce competition certainly in the high end, but we also see it in the mid to low end of smartphones increasing,” said Jo Harlow, chief of Nokia’s smartphone unit, via Reuters. “We will defend our position, but we believe we also have tools to play offense as well as defense.”
Part of that “defense” will be to push smartphone prices lower while at the same time increasing margins. Recent figures showed that Nokia had lost smartphone market share for the most recent quarter, from 41 percent to 35 percent.
“Reducing the number of smartphone models makes a lot of sense … but Nokia has to be very careful in finding the right balance: its large product portfolio has been one of its strong competitive advantages in the past,” concludes Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu.
Result for: phone models
Nokia has sued Apple this week over the popular iPhone smartphone, claiming Apple infringes on Nokia patents.
There are 10 patents up for dispute, each of which relate to technologies “fundamental to making devices compatible with one or more mobile standards.”
Nokia went as far as to say that they had invested about $60 billion USD in to research and development and that Apple did little to compensate them for the patents.
The patents range from wireless data, speech coding, security and encryption on all iPhone models from the iPhone 1G to the iPhone 3GS.
“The basic principle in the mobile industry is that those companies who contribute in technology development to establish standards create intellectual property, which others then need to compensate for,” said Ilkka Rahnasto, vice president for legal & intellectual property at Nokia, via the WSJ. “Apple is also expected to follow this principle.”
Nokia has license agreements with over 40 companies allowing them to use the mobile technology.
It is unclear how much Nokia is seeking in damages but many expect the figures to reach the billions.
