Smartphone shipments worldwide will increase to 390 million units by 2013--a compound annual growth rate of 20.9 percent over the 2009-2013 forecast period in question--according to research firm IDC. While IDC predicts the Symbian operating system will retain its global leadership position over that time thanks largely to Nokia's dominance in markets outside of the U.S., Android is expected to experience faster growth than any of its rivals, leaping from 2008 shipments of 690,000 to 68 million units by 2013, a CAGR of 150.4 percent. IDC adds Android will benefit from the growing footprint of handset vendors supporting the platform, and will finish second to Symbian in shipments by 2013.
On the flipside, IDC forecasts Linux and Palm's webOS shipments will struggle throughout the forecast period. Shipments of Linux-powered devices are expected to trend down due to greater emphasis on the Android platform, although some vendors will continue to support the platform--as for webOS, IDC believes the operating system will grow steadily, but will ultimately capture only narrow market share as a result of limited deployment and operator availability.
For more on the IDC forecast:
- read this release
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