While iPhone shipments are growing quickly, smartphones based on the Symbian operating system (OS) remain dominant and will continue to grow over the next several years, reports In-Stat. However, Symbian will wane, resulting in a drop in net Symbian-based smartphone shipments in 2014.
Meanwhile, the basis of competition will change from the OS to the functionality and "user experiences" that the phone can provide. The advanced feature sets of smartphones continue to evolve as users demand capabilities such as touch screens, increased camera resolution and Wi-Fi connectivity options. "In-Stat believes new OSs such as Android and Maemo will cut away at Symbian market share," says Allen Nogee, In-Stat analyst. "Although there are relatively few open source OS-based smartphones in the market today, the open source OS momentum is difficult to ignore. After years of hype, it is easy to see that 2010 will be the year of Android." Article