It would be tempting to say that the high-mobility device market is a two-horse race. Certainly, in the United States, in both tablets and smartphones, the combined unit share of
The two held 66.3% of the U.S. smartphone market in 1Q14 — about two-thirds of unit shipments — flat with the year before. However, within that figure, Apple’s share declined by 3.1% and Samsung’s grew by the same amount, although Apple still holds a commanding overall lead. All others accounted for 33.7% of the market.
Worldwide, their lead is less pronounced. They shared 45.9% of smartphone unit shipments in 1Q14, down somewhat from 48.9% in 1Q13. Both lost a point or two, allowing all others to rise from 51.1% to 54.1%
The tablet market, being younger than the smartphone market, is in a more dynamic state, and market share is changing faster. In U.S. tablet shipments, the two companies’ share rose from a combined 69.5% to 71.2% between 1Q13 and 1Q14, but the 1.7% rise was made up of Samsung’s dramatic leap from 17.9% to 26.0% and Apple’s 6.3% drop from 51.6% to 45.3%.
Diffusion of share is a bit more evident in the worldwide tablet market. Together, Samsung and Apple held onto 56.0% in 1Q14, down a few points from 59.6% in 1Q13. Still, Samsung gained 4.5 points of share while Apple — which in any event managed to ship 60% more units than Samsung — lost 8.0 points. All others rose 3.7% from 40.4% to 44.0%.
These datasets at least hint at further market dynamism. In tablets, Asian firms, such as ASUS, Lenovo, and
No conversation about the high-mobility market would be complete without a reference to
Even Amazon, which has made some impact in tablets, uses a “forked” version of Android, essentially bits (which are entirely maintained by Amazon and receive no support from Google) broken away from Google’s control under open license.
Viewed at the operating-system level, there are really only two camps with any weight: iOS and Android.
At the hardware level, most high-mobility units are still built on ARM architecture, which is used by both the iOS and Android camps.
As the Apple-Samsung legal war reaches its denouement without a knockout blow, the future of high mobility, which has taken enormous wind out of PCs, becomes clearer. Smartphones and tablets proved that endpoints would not always and forever be PCs, but now both those relatively new markets are maturing. First-mover Apple will lose that advantage over time, and others will rise, as successive generations of technology displace existing ones. The Google-ARM gang has momentum, and multiple vendors in that space will be nibbling at Apple’s market share over the next few years.
There remains room in the market for one or two more platforms. Arguably, the best contender for a slot is Microsoft, which supplies the technology behind a growing number of tablets sold to commercial organizations by hardware makers like Dell, Hewlett-Packard, and Lenovo. Dark horses include various Chinese upstarts hoping to leverage domestic shipments into international sales, but these black swans seem unlikely to make it outside their home country.
A conclusion here is that shares in the high-mobility market are likely to even out more as the market develops, with Apple remaining important, but various Google partners rising up around it. The surprising implication, though, is that Samsung is likely to lose its large lead over other Android vendors, as they all share much of the same technology, and the challengers are gaining in experience, competence, and market presence.
Twitter: RogerKay
