Apple, Android, and RIM Win the Smartphone Race in 2009, Nokia and Symbian Not Far Behind

The annual sales numbers (2009) for mobile phones worldwide has just been released by Gartner. The OS market share for smartphones alone, shows the biggest gains being made by Android, iPhone OS, and Research in Motion (up 3.4, 6.2, and 3.3% points). Symbian is off 5.5 points while Windows Mobile is off 3.1 points. It has been said that in the recent years Symbian seems to have become uncompetitive, while the concession is that Nokia's market share is still strong. The sales of smartphones have totaled to 53.8 million units in 2009, with a spurt in growth in the last quarter of the year.

Nokia still dominates total sales of all handsets with 36.4% of the market share. Motorola has dropped from 7.6% to 4.5% in 2009 worldwide sales while LG and Samsung have been growing steadily at its expense. Â The best performers of the year were Android and Apple and predictions for 2010 reveal that operating systems, applications, and services will be the major focus area while hardware would recede to the background.