Gartner, Inc. released their updated projections for the worldwide mobile OS market share distributions through 2014 and Android is the undisputed winner finishing out this year as the number two mobile OS worldwide and a continuous upward trend leaving it knocking on Symbian’s door by 2014.
The writing has been on the wall with Android’s ever accelerating activations this year clearly pointing toward it eventually unseating Symbian from the throne. Steve Job’s sad flailing on stage last week about their “activations” being in line with Android’s notwithstanding the reality is that Apple is firmly ensconced in 4th place internationally and while they may “pass” RIM as it descends into irrelevance they aren’t going to be within screaming distance of Android or Symbian by the end of 2011.
Considering the annoying buzzing of some fanboys about open versus closed operating systems in the last week I particularly enjoyed this quote from the press release:
Gartner predicts that by 2014, open-source platforms will continue to dominate more than 60 percent of the market for smartphones. Single-source platforms, such as Apple’s iOS and Research In Motion’s OS, will increase in unit terms, but their growth rate will be below market average and not enough to sustain share increase.Gartner August 2010 Report
These are only projections and are subject to change, but popular opinion amongst analysts certainly seems to be stacking up behind Android taking the crown as the #1 mobile OS worldwide in the coming years and its growth trajectory in the last 6-12 months makes it a hard point to argue.
Do you think Android can overtake Symbian in the next four years and if not what do you think is the greatest threat to Android seeing the rosy future projected by Gartner come to pass?
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