Mobile developers have a healthy disrespect for analyst smartphone forecasts. How many companies predicted five years ago that a Google-powered OS would have left rivals for dust in 2011, after all?
That said, this month's set of forecasts from Ovum and IDC do have predictions worth chewing over for any developer trying to put together a long-term strategy.
They share the view that Android will continue to lead the pack in the next few years, and by some margin. Two other points are just as interesting, though: the analysts' belief that there will be at least four smartphone platforms with a sizeable user base, and their confidence that Microsoft's Windows Phone will not be a flop.
Here are the topline stats. In 2016, Ovum thinks Android will take a 38% market share of smartphone shipments, followed by Apple's iOS (17.5%), Windows Phone (17.2%) and RIM's BlackBerry OS (16.5%).
Other OS will account for the remaining 10.8%, with Ovum expecting at least one other smartphone OS to "achieve mainstream success" by 2016, citing bada, webOS and MeeGo as possibles, or a new entrant.
IDC actually thinks Microsoft will overhaul Apple a year earlier in 2015, when it sees the smartphone market being split thus: Android (45.4%), Windows Phone (20.9%), iOS (15.3%), BlackBerry (13.7%). It thinks Symbian will have shrunk to a 0.2% market share due to Nokia switching to Windows Phone, while others are pegged at having a 4.6% share in 2015.
Will all this come to pass? Stick your finger in the wind and guess: come 2015, Apple may have launched an entry-level iPhone. RIM might have pulled a Nokia and ditched its own OS in favour of, say, Android. And China in particular may throw up the wildcard fifth platform, with China Mobile, China Unicom and Baidu rumoured to be working on their own smartphone operating systems.
The analysts are bullish about the prospects of Android and Windows Phone, and they don't see iOS or BlackBerry falling away too much either. What about developers though – do you agree that a few years down the line there will still be even four (or even five) major smartphone platforms demanding your attention? Post a comment with your views.
