2009: Smartphones mainstream

It was a trend that had begun several years ago(smartphone market share), but in 2009 the smartphone in the Netherlands really become mainstream. Teenagers run away with Blackberry, many people have bought an iPhone and there were many devices sold with Symbian, Windows Mobile and Android.

The biggest breakthrough, however, was the price: where smartphones until this year were payable only haste with expensive subscriptions, giving providers increasingly smartphones 'free' way in cheaper subscriptions. That's because the price of individual units is coming down. A full-featured smartphone, you can currently get for less than 300 euros with virtually every known OS. And then it was indeed just devices on the market.

Prices fell, but sales did not: the smartphone industry in 2009 showed the economic downturn surprised many to resist. The sector was not growing as fast as before, but was against the flow or increase in size, worldwide there were more smartphones sold than in 2008, according to Gartner almost one quarter more.

Tweakers.net looks back to 2009 in this overview. What happened this year? Obviously we can focus also give a preview to see what the future holds.

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Rapid growth in smartphone market

Rapid growth in smartphone market

The worldwide market for smartphones in the first months of the year compared to last year grew by nearly half. Market research firm Gartner figures published Wednesday on the market for mobile phones.

A total of 314 million mobile phones sold. This was more than 17 percent one year earlier and the fastest growth in four years time. Among them were 54.3 million smartphones.

Nokia maintained its lead in the market. The Finnish mobile phone producer has a market share of 35 percent of the total market and market share of over 44 percent of the smartphone market. Here occupy blackberry manufacturer Research in Motion, Apple and smartphones with Google's Android operating system places 2 through 4.

Android smartphones are booming. In the first quarter were in the United States with Android smartphones sold than iPhones, the Apple phone. Gartner expects Android Apple in the short term the world over strive for it.

Gartner raised its growth forecast for the worldwide mobile phone market. The researchers now rely on 14 percent growth versus a previous expectation of 11 percent.

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Patent pending split smartphone

Patent pending split smartphone

A frequent drawback of a full PDA smartphones that combine phone functionality with traditional, is that the devices have a considerable size. A new patent claims to be the solution for this problem.

The patent describes a device that initially looks like a standard smartphone. The innovation lies in the fact that a small device from the device can be realized that the size of the smallest mobile phones currently on the market. The latter device contains only the phone functionality and is really just a mobile phone. This gives the user access to a smartphone with all its possibilities, but is it possible to only a small phone with you when going out. Shows the advantages of a single phone combined with that of a smartphone.

Or forward this product is also present on the smartphone market can be expected, remains to be seen.It seems that the patent is assigned to an independent inventor, where no big company behind it. Moreover, developments in the PDA and smartphone market is so fast that new developments the disadvantages of smartphones - namely the size - perhaps a different way away. Dividing a smartphone into two separate devices again because the necessary costly, since you have two separate batteries are required and other functionality to be duplicated.

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41 million dollar market for mobile Medical Apps

41 million dollar market for mobile Medical Apps

New York - The growing number of healthcare professionals using mobile medical applications, or apps in daily activities is to contribute to a rapid growth in this emerging smartphone market segment. Although much smaller than other popular mobile app segments, mobile medical applications Slowly gaining market share as revenues are expected to more than double in 2010 over 2009, according to research publisher Kalorama Information report new health care market, "global market for Mobile Medical Apps."

The market for mobile medical apps worth approximately $ 41 million in 2009, which translates to about 1.5% of the total mobile app market and Kalorama 2010 sales estimates to arrive at $ 84,100,000. Medical apps compete for market share with very large app and popular categories like gaming, entertainment, social networking, and navigation. Despite the higher price tag for most medical applications (average $ 15 per app), the number of downloads fail - the creation of medical applications at the bottom of the sales compared to other categories.

However, the use of smartphones is growing rapidly in the health sector because they offer a range of programs, ease and efficiency that can not be achieved with traditional computers and pocket drug references. It was estimated that in 2004 approximately 25% of practicing physicians in the U.S. uses a PDA or smartphone.Deze increased to about 35-40% in 2008. By 2010, more than 50% of physicians using smartphones or PDAs on a regular basis for the treatment of daily activity.

"Not only is the medical community using smartphones and their applications for basic tasks, but they report to use a portion of the work that previously would have done on a desktop or laptop computer to complete," said Melissa Elder, an analyst by Kalorama Information and author of the report. "With one of the main focuses in healthcare today aimed at reducing costs, any tool that can help medical staff more efficiently is a boon for the industry."

Smartphone applications can be developed for many types of processes, including education, healthcare, data management, health information and other workflow processes. There are literally hundreds of thousands of apps available for smartphones users. The Apple App Store offers more than 250,000 apps for its users. Within specific categories, such as management of health care, some providers offer smartphone apps to 2,000. These help monitor heartbeat, diabetes management, record exercise schedules, and link to larger systems for management of medical records.

"The use of smartphones in professional healthcare is still taking shape, but some providers have seen the potential and are using the technology," said Elder.

Kalorama Information "global market for Mobile Medical Apps" gives a detailed overview of the PDA and smartphone use in health care, with market size and growth estimates leading smartphone operating systems and applications providers, handheld device technology adoption by physicians and issues facing IT in healthcare

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Developing for Windows Mobile?

Developing for Windows Mobile?

If you develop applications for the smartphone market share, that (besides web applications) applications for smartphones. Smartphones are having a system that allows for a self-written software to install. There are different types of operating systems, like ordinary computer market. And, just as in ordinary computer market, you can develop your software is best for the most popular operating system.

The question that every mobile developer so now is: "For what operating system we must develop mobile applications?

The answer is simple: "Ask yourself the difficult question, but building a web application." A web application is platform independent and future-oriented. Is a web application for performance reasons is not an option, then you'd agree to look at the global smartphone sales by operating system.

Click image to enlarge (Source: Canalys)

These figures show that Symbian's market leader in the mobile operating system and Apple with its iPhone, recently has claimed a piece of market share. Based on these data it seems logical to choose the Symbian platform to develop software for the mobile market. But is it the best choice? That depends on what your target audience.

Mid-range or high end

Unlike its competitors, Symbian is also installed on one major type of mid-range smartphones. These are products with a huge turnover, a small color screen, no GPS and no touch screen. Approximately 85% of all Symbian phones in Europe are offered falls into this category.Some critics say:

"Nokia does somehow fake just by giving the Smartphone Sells Nearly All Their mid-to upper-class S60 phones." DanielW

Such critics refer to the market for high-end smartphones. A market with smaller numbers, but higher margins. In that market, also called the market of "mobile computer", is Symbian which is much less well represented.

To illustrate, here are a random selection from the range of Symbian.The "Nokia N95 is a high-end smartphone, while the rest clear mid-range smartphones.

Nokia 5500 Sport Nokia 6290 Nokia E50 Nokia N93i

Nokia N95

The mid-range smartphones do not usually have built-in GPS. Still, we expect that before too long these mid-range phones also have this functionality. So you develop location-based software for mid-range smartphones, Symbian has over a large potential market, especially over time. Symbian is because almost every ruler in the mid-range smartphone market.

But you develop a complex application, you can not handle the small screen and lack of a touchscreen and you must focus on the high-end smartphones.

America = high-end

Of course it is interesting to see the figures by area. We have estimated that 85% of Symbian products in Europe mid-range, while the competition almost exclusively high-end products aanbeidt. For convenience, we assume that all Symbian products are equally popular (probably actually the mid-range products is much more popular than the high end). This results in the graph where EMEA [1] the overall smartphone market in Europe. EMEA [2] is the estimated high-end market in Europe, questioned the size of the Symbian market share can be put.

Click image to enlarge (Source: Canalys)

ROW to the rest of the world. We see that the iPhone market share is entirely due to the huge success in North America. We also see that Symbian with many mid-range products is not got a foothold in America, while high-end iPhone is doing very well there.

If we take America and Europe we see the following estimated distribution in the high-end smartphone market:

Click image to enlarge (Source: Canalys)

They remain speculations, but I see the high-end market is favorable for Windows Mobile. Of course there are strong product concepts, like the iPhone and Blackberry, but the question is whether their breath long enough.

The year 2008

It is expected that 2008 will be running Google launched Android.These analysts could well become the new star in the sky and can share their sovereignty. In addition, the iPhone in 2008 available to the general European public. This means even more success for Apple?Who knows. 2008 is at least an exciting year.

Conclusion

Develop your mid-range smartphone, then you should opt for Symbian.They are market leader and virtually no competition.

However comlexe Develop your applications for high-end smartphones for Europe and North America, then it is different. Windows Mobile currently seem to have the eennagrootste share. Strong product concepts, like the iPhone and Blackberry, albeit currently have a large market share, but the question is whether their breath long enough.Windows Mobile seems this is a solid choice.

During 2008, Google and Apple, however, their strengths. This may shed new light on the matter. I'm curious. 

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Samsung smartphones market share rises sharply by Omnia