Tomi Ahonen's 2013 forecast · Links
28 March 2013 · PPK
A typical Tomi Ahonen long-read where he predicts 2013's smartphone market. Bottom line: stability - but only in 2013. The old battles have ended, and the new combatants aren't quite ready yet to enter the ring.
The Nokia carnage is over, the Nokia dividend ended up going disproportionately to Samsung. The Blackberry blood has been spilled and it should now be stabilized. Android's rapid rize has reached near its peak, it should now also stabilize. The growth and declines will be more with the smaller manufacturers, picking up a few points of market share for especially some Chinese makers, and the new operating systems, led by Tizen and Firefox, picking what remains off the corpses of Windows, Symbian (and bada).
This industry is however very highly competitive. A one hit phone could suddenly turn a bit-player into a contender and whatever platform that phone happens to be on, could become hot too. HTC, LG, Blackberry are all companies that have the ability to make a comeback, and if Nokia fired its CEO and ended the Windows misadventure, Nokia could easily bounce back too releasing a series of MeeGo powered smartphones instead.