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Apple Takes Lead In Smartphone Market

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published

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The debate continues to rage about who owns the smartphone market and who will own it in the future. Many new surveys claim that the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Android operating system has overtaken the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone as the preferred product among consumers who want the equivalent of tiny portable PCs, which become more powerful as tools for managing communications and entertainment by the hour.

Other new surveys show that Apple has moved to the top spot in smartphone share, at least in the US. Still others say that the Research In Motion (NASDAQ: RIMM) BlackBerry retains the top spot it has held since the infancy of the devices.

Canalys, a research firm that tracks the smartphone market, has a new study which will fuel the arguments over which company is ascending and which is descending.

In Q3 2010, the worldwide smart phone market grew an impressive 95% over the same quarter a year ago to 80.9 million shipped units. Nokia retained its leadership position, albeit by a diminished margin, with a 33% share of the market. Apple’s healthy performance this quarter saw it achieve a 17% share worldwide, a little ahead of RIM, which held a 15% share this quarter. In the world’s largest smart phone market, the US, Apple ousted RIM from the top spot, seizing a 26% share as iPhone shipments continued unabated

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The confusion continues, and will until several of the companies fall far out of the race and one or two take clear leads.

For now, those projected winners are Apple, and Android.

That is, unless, of course, Microsoft improbably seizes a lead.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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