Global Android Smartphone Shipments to Hit 32 Million
Global Android Smartphone Shipments to Hit 32 Million
28th October , 2009
US : According to research of the Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC) conducted as part of the ITIS project, shipment volume of Smartphones equipped with the Android platform is expected to reach 6.50 million units in 2009, and shipment volume of these products is forecast to reach 31.80 million units in 2013. Shipment volume CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) for Android Smartphones is expected to be significantly higher than the CAGR of overall Smartphone shipment volume.
Furthermore, overall shipment of Android-equipped products is forecast to reach 126 million units in 2013. Besides Smartphones, Android products also include PC-like products, portable devices and residential products. Residential and portable equipment are expected to become major growth drivers.
According to MIC Industry Analyst Kate Huang, "currently products equipped with the Android platform are still mainly Smartphones. Faced with the threat from the Android platform, Symbian could accelerate the opening of its system in order to attract more companies to Symbian. Windows Mobile could lower licensing fees in order to reduce the impact from Android."
Following Google's launch of the Android platform and the establishment of OHA, changes have occurred in the overall mobile industry value chain. The open character of the Android platform can provide more customization options for mobile operators, and benefits the differentiation of product interfaces such as the HTC Sense UI and MotoBlur. Furthermore, the free and open source code provided by the Android platform stimulates more consumer electronics and PC vendors to use the Android platform.
With the number of Android-platform products increasing, the variety of hardware specifications will lead to program-related problems. This will not only lower the willingness of developers to make investments, but the performance of application programs will also be limited. Currently, there are only 13,000 Android Market applications, still far behind the 85,000 of the App Store. In the future, if Google accelerates the promotion of paid download programs in other regional markets, it might significantly increase the willingness of application service developers to invest, and it could rapidly increase the number of application programs in order to attract more users.
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