Marvell Technology posted weak earnings on Friday, leading to a 10 percent dip in the company’s shares.
Perhaps more notably, Marvell’s report highlighted the continued struggles of RIM, maker of the BlackBerry smartphones.
Marvell makes the application processors in BlackBerry devices.
Overall revenue in the wireless and mobile markets fell 13 percent year-over-year and CEO Sehat Sutardja said the decline was due to the fact that RIM “was shifting entry-level smart phones, an area where we do not currently participate.”
The shift came as a shock to most, although one analyst explains:
Demand for low-end smart phones is rapidly outpacing growth in the high-end segment in emerging economies given their lower cost.
RIM Blackberrys are particularly attractive in this market given the Blackberry Messaging service which allows free Blackberry-Blackberry messaging and lowers the total cost of usage.
Nielsen reported this week that Android had taken the crown as top smartphone OS in the U.S. with 29 percent share, followed by iOS and BlackBerry at 27 percent each.
Result for: smart phone
Nokia retained the top spot in the global smartphone market, according to iSuppli, even gaining share in the Q2.
Android’s growing popularity was evident by gains seen by a few handset makers, especially HTC and Samsung.
Nokia took the top spot with a 39.7 percent share, showing 11.6 percent growth from the first quarter. RIM, the makers of the BlackBerry line, remained in second at 18.5 percent, seeing a slight decline in share despite shipping more devices.
Apple took a dive while remaining in third place at 13.9 percent. The iPhone maker dropped from 15.7 percent last quarter on slowing shipments.
Seeing massive growth thanks to Android sales, HTC shipments grew 63 percent and market share jumped to 8 percent. Samsung saw 55.6 percent growth in shipments, moving up to 4.5 percent market share.
Motorola continued its climb, moving to 4.5 percent on 12.5 percent growth.
Says Tina Teng, iSuppli’s senior wireless communications analyst: “From the spectacular growth of HTC and Samsung, to the steady advances of Motorola, Android is the secret sauce for smart phone growth for many companies in 2010.”
Result for: smart phone
According to Canalys Smart Phone Analysis services, the smartphone market grew 64 percent globally year-on-year (YoY) for the Q2 2010, with Nokia remaining the worldwide leader.
Nokia, long the world’s biggest phone seller, shipped 23.8 million phones during the quarter, good for 38 percent share of the global market. The vendor saw 41 percent growth YoY.
While 41 percent growth is strong by any standard, it is important to note that that number fell well below the overall market growth of 64 percent, and well below the growth of Android and Apple.
For the quarter, Android saw a ridiculous 886 percent growth, with Apple seeing 61 percent growth. U.S. market leader RIM saw 41 percent growth for their BlackBerry devices.
HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson and LG all offer Android devices.
Says Canalys VP and Principal Analyst, Chris Jones: “The latest release of our detailed and complete country-level smart phone shipment data for Q2 2010 clearly reveals the impressive momentum Android is gaining in markets around the world.”
