Gartner has announced global sales numbers for mobile phone sales in 2009 and in operating systems iPhone OS has gained the largest market share… a whooping 6.2% increase from 2008. RIM and Android have also made considerable gains in market share but Symbian, though still top, has dropped 5.5% and now owns less than half of the market.

Nokia are certainly still prevelant in the mobile phone market despite dropping in the handest market too (down 2.2%) and in handset sales Samsung have made the most remarked improvement (up 3.2%). Sony Ericsson and Motorola have made considerable drops from 2008 (3.1% and 3.9% drops).

We theorise however in 2010 (though it’s too early to tell) that Nokia will regain the market share with some exciting releases in 2010 (such as the N900), the iPhone will continue to grow as more network providers get hold of the phone (particularly Vodafone) and Microsoft will grow (with an exciting release of their Windows 7 phones). Android OS is being more widely implemented on smartphones in 2010 and will continue to grow, but the likes of Sony Ericsson might just continue to drop if they don’t give us anything groundbreaking in 2010.

by Richard Armitage