Who Is Getting The Bigger Share Of The Smart Phone Market?

Smartphones, the latest class of mobile phones have captured the mobile phone markets as they are very useful not only as a basic mobile phone of receiving and making calls and sending SMS messages but also perform many key functions of personal computers.

Various top manufacturers, such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Blackberry or iPhone bring out new models of smartphones featuring latest technologies every year and with the result, the mobile phone market is full of different models of smartphones. All these well-known brands make every attempt to garner maximum market share in the smartphone market.

Manufacturers of these brands have already made their mark in the smartphone market and are market leaders in their own way. While iPhone has succeeded in capturing maximum share in American markets, Blackberry and Nokia still have significant presence in European markets.

Nokia and Sony Ericsson mainly rule Indian, Chinese and other Asian markets. Each company tries to cut into the market share of other competitors by incorporating new features frequently. If the strengths of each brand of smartphones are compared, we find that Nokia is renowned for its extraordinary range of models with the prospects of their latest release, E7 smartphone appearing very bright.

Nokia unveiled its E7 smartphone at a premium price before the release of Sony Ericsson’ s release of similar smartphones in their XPERIA series, called Sony Ericsson XPERIA Pro. The reason for this is that Symbian operating system, after being popular for over a decade, has been outstripped by the Android OS.

Even though, Symbian is the proprietary operating system of Nokia, still they had to bring out only Android-based smartphones mainly because that is the only way they can effectively face stiff competition from other leading players. Although Blackberry is well-known for its remarkable operating system Blackberry OS, they are more popular for their secure method of sending email communications.

iPhone is also among the top smartphones in the market in terms of unique features. The developer of iOS has done a wonderful job in ensuring its success. In case of iPhones, it is a simple job to download whatever application one wants. All he has to do is to browse ‘App Store’ and download applications. Nokia also has established its own ‘Ovi Store’ on similar lines.

iPhones are also renowned for its ‘stylish and sleek’ designs. Android-run smartphones have set up ‘Android Market’ online stores on the lines of “App Store” and “Ovi Store”. But the amount of free applications available on Android market is much more than its competitors.

Sony Ericsson, one of the foremost manufacturers of Android- based smartphones, has produced a complete series of XPERIA phones based on Android OS technology Sony Ericsson is well-known for its extraordinary quality of phones in terms of elegant appearance, battery life, operating system, speed of the processor and the overall design.

Another top-maker of smartphones, Samsung is also giving a stiff fight to its competitors mainly in the Asian markets. They have introduced series of smartphones, some of which operate on Android, while some others run on their proprietary Operating System ‘BADA OS’. Sony Ericsson smartphone cameras have several advanced features like excellent quality of pictures and for a specific megapixel are much more superior to smartphone cameras of all its competitors.

Prices of smartphones of all makes depend upon the geographical locations in which they are marketed and the competition among the companies in that location. It is therefore difficult to get an idea of the price range of various brands of smartphones. Sony Ericsson and iPhone adopt ‘market skimming strategy’. They sell their models of smartphones at a premium price initially, justifying the high price on the quality of their products attracting as many customers as possible before competitors step in and reduce the market price.

In contrast, Nokia and Samsung market two sets of smartphones, one selling at high prices, but not normally higher than those of Sony Ericsson or Apple smartphones and another set of phones are sold at comparatively moderate prices targeting middle class group. These two companies adopt ‘market penetration’ strategy to attract middle income group customers.

Those trying to purchase a smartphone should, therefore carry out a comprehensive research on various models of smartphones in and around their nearby areas in order to get the best price.