Which three heavyweights will the smartphone market support?

Published by Ewan Spence at 19:45 UTC, September 14th 2009

While watching an interview recorded at the Gnomedex conference over the summer, I was struck with a statement from Micah Baldwin. In talking about the startup environment online with Jolie O'Dell, and specifically social networks, he said that any market can comfortably take three major players in the space. And given the crowded nature of the Smartphone OS market, do we have three clear heavyweights?

I think the answer here is no. We've got two ecosystems that you could argue are the heavyweights that have broken away from the pack, but a peloton close behind them which could be considered the third player, depending on your criteria and which region of the world you're discussing.

Let's start with the two obvious heavyweights, and the first shouldn't be a surprise. Symbian OS (with S60). The partnership of Symbian OS and the S60 interface is the biggest selling smartphone operating system by a country mile, with hundreds of phones from a number of manufacturers. It has strong support from operators, a decent level of third party app support and is in some of the biggest selling devices around. You might disagree with their current strategy or past decisions, but from an empirical level you cannot argue with their inclusion.

Neither could you ignore the iPhone. Selling in multiple millions, the consumer friendly phone that has brought the mobile internet to the majority of users, it opened the eyes of many (and the majority of the American mobile market) to what a mobile connected device could do. As with Symbian, there are a number of issues that you could pick up about the iPhone depending on your viewpoint, but on emotional impact on the market and the ability to nurture a closed ecosystem, Apple's iPhone OS takes the second slot.

Picture by Funky Pancake

The third slot though is the one where I think people are going to be arguing, because there isn't a clear winner. My first instinct was to go with Google's Android OS, which has built up a good online reputation. But online reputation is not the only mark of success. Handsets are still relatively thin on the ground and the support from network operators is patchy at best. Android may be a strong medium to long term 'buy' prospect, but right now it's relying on the Google name to be lofted above others, and that's not enough.

Another OS trading on a name and reputation is Palm and their new WebOS. It's currently a US-only device, and there's no indication yet that it is doing stellar sales. I also recall a number of bar charts when Palm (née PalmOne, née err.... Palm) was doing strong business on the Treo. They had a nice percentage of sales in the US, but nothing anywhere else in the world. Do strong sales in one region (admittedly one region that has the lions share of tech web sites) enough to be one of the 'three'?

Probably not, which means the other Symbian OS candidate, DoCoMo in Japan, can't make the top division either, but it's probably a stronger approach than looking at just the sales figures... because if raw numbers was the only factor then we'd have to consider Nokia's bespoke OS Series 40. It's got a web browser, it can handle rich messaging, third party applications and Web 2.0 tools, so why shouldn't it be there? Because it's old. Because it was never meant to be extended the way it has been? Because it's not in the flagship phones?

And then there is the enterprise focus that are Research in Motion's Blackberries and the various Windows Mobile devices. They may no longer be the darlings of the geekerati but these workhorses still do the job in the corporate world... the number of Blackberry devices I saw with agents and PR people at the Edinburgh Fringe is testament to that. But are they still heavyweights? I'd probably say no on the part of Microsoft, they're firmly in the second division, but Research in Motion are definitely fighting for the final promotion spot.

It's clear that one of the big factors is geography – the three top choices in Japan would likely be far different to North America, with a European three somewhere in the middle of that. I also don't think that any of the smartphone OS's would be able to be in the top three in each of those three areas – the iPhone isn't a significant player in the Far East; S60 has not made an impact in the North American market; Palm's WebOS is effectively in start-up mode and focusing on the US; and of course the smaller players are all looking to expand while the leading companies need to keep innovating to maintain their position.

All the talk that there is a victor in the smartphone market is just that. Talk. There is a natural ebb and flow and right now, some companies are on the rise, and some are on the wane. Will those waning companies be replaced, or will they pick up again, either with an updated OS or something brand new? Or is there something in stealth mode just round the corner that's going to surprise us all? I can't wait to find out.

– Ewan Spence, Sept 2009.

News Discussion

Quote:

Originally Posted by svdwal . In car terms, think Apple as BMW, Nokia as Toyota/Lexus or Volkswagen/Audi/Porsche and RIM as Mercedes.

I find it hard to equate Apple with BMW when Apple have only a single phone, whilst BMW sell a complete range of cars, including little 1 series, 3, 5, sporting 6 Series, a luxury 7 series and the Z cars plus the Mini and RR marques. Then across each range of cars BMW produce a choice of engine types and sizes. Add on to that the M variants.

I am looking for a car company with a single innovative product that moves thing on a bit, whilst being still comparitively limited and ridiculously expensive. I can only think of another Californian company - Tesla.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered I find it hard to equate Apple with BMW when Apple have only a single phone, whilst BMW sell a complete range of cars, including little 1 series, 3, 5, sporting 6 Series, a luxury 7 series and the Z cars plus the Mini and RR marques. Then across each range of cars BMW produce a choice of engine types and sizes. Add on to that the M variants. I am looking for a car company with a single innovative product that moves thing on a bit, whilst being still comparitively limited and ridiculously expensive. I can only think of another Californian company - Tesla.

I forgot the BMW X series.

The other thing to mention with Tesla is all the media time they have been getting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duncan J Murray S60 is on the down, and it's only going to continue that way unless it is seriously revamped. The problem is that up until now, the people who have used and enjoyed S60, are those who know a bit about computers, and have an interest in making it work - basically a bit geeky. It's been like this since the first smartphones were announced. There is another huge group of S60 users who aren't at all aware of the capabilities of their phones (I know a huge number personally myself). When the Iphone came out, it was seen as a revolution in mobile phones by everyone except the geeky S60 users, who'd enjoyed web browsing, gps, 3rd party apps for years. Then came the N97 - apparently Nokia's answer to the iphone. This attracted a completely new market of people who want the functionality of the iphone, but don't want an iphone. They then discover that S60 was never a hugely intuitive operating system, and suddenly symbian (and yes, it is symbian that gets the stick for it) is the poor-man's OS. So, back to my original point - symbian needs an overhaul so that everyone else can use it. I don't know if Nokia are going to do that, or if they will invest their time into Maemo instead. I notice though that Nokia have bought QT - the programming display language (I think that's its name, but I'm not a programmer, so I'm not sure) which help created loads of software on PC/Mac/Linux, and is now licensed for symbian, which means that it shouldn't be too hard to port the maemo user interface between symbian and linux. My top three prediction in 5 years will be: Iphone Android Maemo Duncan.

Nokia have (up til now) almost viewed Maemo as a Skunkworks project - its never had much time, and had a lot of geeks doing the development in their spare time (look at the HE firmware variants).

I believe that the purchase of QT may involve UI changes on Symbian.

The iPhone was viewed as moving the game on by people who don't want to think about how to use their phones. Not that its bad by any stretch of the imagination, its pretty darned slick - but you've got to have serious mental problems if you actually think that S60 has a bad UI. Its consistent, ridiculously easy to use.

S60 is going to be revamped - look at the Symbian Foundation.

Symbian is still by far and away the best mobile operating system, and the only major player that has ever been designed from the ground up for mobile usage. You could say that Windows mobile was designed for mobile usage, but its grown out of Windows CE, which was always an abortion of UI elements, and after 6 major revisions, its barely changed.

I think the big 3 will be :

Symbian
iPhone
Android

Although Blackberry will always keep its niche as a corporate e-mail device. But I can't ever view it as a smartphone.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Unregistered I find it hard to equate Apple with BMW when Apple have only a single phone, whilst BMW sell a complete range of cars, including little 1 series, 3, 5, sporting 6 Series, a luxury 7 series and the Z cars plus the Mini and RR marques. Then across each range of cars BMW produce a choice of engine types and sizes. Add on to that the M variants.

Nokia hasn't the breadth of the Volkswagen group or Toyota either, the number of models is not the point. The point is the way these companies segment their market. Apple, Nokia and RIM compete in the high end market, just like BMW, Audi and Mercedes. Nokia and RIM compete in the business market, just like Mercedes and Volkswagen with their vans. BMW tries to own the ultimate drivability experience, just like Apple tries to own (and currently does) the ultimate usability experience. Both BMW and Apple are (coming) under pressure from Audi and Nokia in their respective owned experiences. Etc. I also don't think that iPhones are as good as phones as BMW's are as good as cars. But if I look at Apple's computers, I have no doubt that the iPhone will be as good a phone as BMW is as a car.

There are more differences, there isn't a North American car manufacturer here, while two of the smartphone makers are North American based, for instance.

And all these car brands have their loyal supporters, who wouldn't dream of driving something else ;-)

Quote:

Originally Posted by svdwal Nokia hasn't the breadth of the Volkswagen group or Toyota either, the number of models is not the point. The point is the way these companies segment their market. Apple, Nokia and RIM compete in the high end market, just like BMW, Audi and Mercedes. Nokia and RIM compete in the business market, just like Mercedes and Volkswagen with their vans. BMW tries to own the ultimate drivability experience, just like Apple tries to own (and currently does) the ultimate usability experience. Both BMW and Apple are (coming) under pressure from Audi and Nokia in their respective owned experiences. Etc. I also don't think that iPhones are as good as phones as BMW's are as good as cars. But if I look at Apple's computers, I have no doubt that the iPhone will be as good a phone as BMW is as a car. And all these car brands have their loyal supporters, who wouldn't dream of driving something else ;-)

The problem is that BMW biggest selling products, like entry level 3 Series (320d) give a lie to the Ultimate Driving Experience claim, and are in fact (apart from fuel consumption) pretty ordinary, average machines, with limited space. Real driving machines like the M3 are much rarer.

The one real similarity between BMW and iPhones that I would agree with, is the generally opinion of their drivers/users are not too well respected.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duncan J Murray S60 is on the down, and it's only going to continue that way unless it is seriously revamped. The problem is that up until now, the people who have used and enjoyed S60, are those who know a bit about computers, and have an interest in making it work - basically a bit geeky. It's been like this since the first smartphones were announced. There is another huge group of S60 users who aren't at all aware of the capabilities of their phones (I know a huge number personally myself). .

The traditional smartphone user (symbian) was never a geek, if you see a geek as a person that is turned on by the gadgets and technology. The symbian user is the person who likes to use the phone as a PDA, principally a calendar, to-do lists, note taking etc. Normal built in stuff. The email and web browsing capabilities are an exptension of that. The vast majority of users were slef-organisers. Not coders, improvisers and people really into how their phone does stuff.

This is shifting though, because every self-organiser I know seems to want a Blackberry, Symbian users tend to be people who don't know they are Symbian users and just see the Nokia devices as simply a phone that does a bit more stuff. iPhone users are people that are impressed by the way ift works on the surface, and like the entertainment capabilities and associations.

Any self-respecting geek seems to be not bothered by phones, they like the little netbooks and some of them have iPhones because of some of wierd and wonderful apps that normal people wouldn't be impressed by.

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