According to Forbes, IDC says that Windows Phone’s market share will edge out iPhone’s and reach almost 20% by 2016. Here are their predicted numbers:
Table 1: IDC’s Smartphone OS Market Share Predictions (May 2012)
| Smartphone OS | 2012 Market Share | 2016 Market Share | 2012 – 2016 CAGR |
|---|---|---|---|
| Android | 61.0% | 52.9% | 9.5% |
| BlackBerry | 6.0% | 5.9% | 12.1% |
| iOS | 20.5% | 19.0% | 10.9% |
| Windows Phone and Windows Mobile | 5.2% | 19.2% | 46.2% |
| Others | 7.2% | 3.0% | -5.4% |
Regular readers of this blog will know that I recently wrote about IDC’s predictions for smartphone market shares that they made back in March 2011. Let’s review them:
Table 2: IDC’s Smartphone OS Market Share Predictions (March 2011)
| Operating System | Predicted 2011 Market Share |
Predicted 2015 Market Share |
|---|---|---|
| Android | 39.5% | 45.4% |
| BlackBerry | 14.9% | 13.7% |
| iOS | 15.7% | 15.3% |
| Symbian | 20.9% | 0.2% |
| Windows Phone 7 and Windows Mobile |
5.5% | 20.9% |
| Others | 3.5% | 4.6% |
Their predicted numbers for Windows Phone have remained the same; it’s just that they’ve been rolled back one year from 2015 to 2016. Their 2012 predictions give Android and iOS greater market shares than in the 2011 predictions and cut their numbers for BlackBerry’s market share in half.
I still think they’re crazy.