Market research firm IDC estimates that Microsoft Windows Phone would be the second most popular smartphone platform, pushing Apple’s iOS to the third spot by 2016. Of course, Android will continue to dominate with a huge margin.
Currently Android leads the global smartphone market with 61 percent market share, Apple’s iOS occupies the second place with 20.5 percent, RIM has six percent while Windows Phone is at 5.2 percent.
According to the results from IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, by 2016 the share of Android will slide to 52.9 percent, Windows Phone will be at second spot with 19.2 percent share, Apple at 19 percent and RIM will occupy the last position with 5.9% market share.
To become the world’s second largest smartphone platform, Windows need to grow at a compounded annual rate of 46.2% till 2016. IDC says that Microsoft will grow due to the growing strength of its hardware partner Nokia in the emerging markets.
The report has given a new confidence to Nokia Corporation, which recently launched a series of competitively priced and favorably reviewed Lumia smartphones. Chris Weber, Nokia’s president of the North American market, said that Nokia wants to build off the user feedback Lumia has garnered.
“What our team is myopically focused on is how much that consumer loves the device and how much they’re willing to recommend it to family and friends —the technical term is net promoter score,” Weber said. “If we get that right, we think the business results will take care of themselves.”
IDC also predicts that the demand for iOS by Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) will slow down as the future sales would mainly come from replacement cycles. RIM’s BlackBerry can witness some growth as the demand for cheap messaging devices will increase, so the Ontario-based company will maintain about 6% market share. However, looking at the company’s declining sales and corporate turmoil, it’s hard to say if RIM can survive long enough to benefit from the emerging countries.
