Forecasts are predicting that shipments of smart phones will reach more than 650 million by 2016.
The research carried out by Ovum won’t surprise a great deal of people and just shows that the worldwide thirst for phones that can do anything and everything is not slowing.
It’s been predicted that the global market for smart phones will grow on an annual basis by 14.5% from 2010 to 2016, with smart phones accounting for 40% of all mobile phone shipments by 2016.
This growth will be of great interest to the gambling industry that at the moment is seeing unprecedented growth in all things mobile.
Adam Leach, a principal analyst at Ovum, said, “The success of the Android platform is being driven by the sheer number of hardware vendors supporting it at both the high and low ends of the market.
“We expect at least one other platform to achieve mainstream success within the forecast period. This could be an existing player in the market, such as [Samsung’s] Bada, WebOS, or [the Nokia-backed] MeeGo, or it could be a new entrant.”
The research also looks at the position the operating system owners will be in by 2016. Google’s Android could by then command the largest share with 38%, Apple’s iPhone OS 17.5%, and Blackberry 16.5%. It also points out that the new partnership between Microsoft and Nokia that will see Windows Phone OS operate on the Finnish company’s phones could give them 17.2% of the global market.
It will be interesting to see how many gambling industry firms decide to take a chance on the Nokia/Windows project as, if the demand for the devices outstrips Blackberry by 2016, it will definitely worth being on board.
