Symbian handsets still second only to iPhone
A report from mobile analytics firm Motally finds that outside north America, the Symbian operating system used by Nokia still dominates Windows and Android phones. — Motally's analysis says the future isn't all about smartphones:
Context & Ripple Effects
Motally's finding lands mid-campaign in a war Nokia has been fighting on several fronts at once. Back in November 2007, Symbian publicly dismissed Google Android as a threat, and a month later Canalys already had the iPhone leading Windows Mobile in US share — so the analytics firm's picture of a world where Symbian trails only the iPhone outside North America is a reminder that the battleground splits sharply by region.
The report also arrives while Nokia is pressing Apple hard: two patent suits filed in early January 2010 over GSM standards, an ITC request seeking an import ban on Apple devices, and a 2010 Symbian UI refresh built on Qt after the S^4 demo in December 2009. Against that, discussion of CES 2010 framed Android as the software-platform story of the year, with surveys noting Android finally roiling the smartphone market after a slow start.
First-order effects
- Developers and publishers chasing global reach cannot treat this as an iPhone-versus-Android race: outside North America, Symbian remains the volume platform behind the iPhone, so shipping without it forfeits most non-US handsets.
- Nokia's legal pressure on Apple — the GSM patent suit and the pending ITC import-ban request — now sits on top of a market-position claim (Motally's) that gives Nokia leverage beyond its own device sales.
Second-order effects
- Android's post-CES momentum puts it on a collision course with Symbian exactly where Symbian is strongest, forcing Nokia to make its Qt-based 2010 UI overhaul convincing enough to hold the low and mid tier against cheaper Android hardware.
- Analytics firms like Motally gain standing as arbiters of the regional-share narrative, and their North America-skewed or globally-split readings will shape which platforms developers prioritize next.
Third-order effects
- If regional splits persist, the industry consolidates into a multi-polar OS map rather than a single winner-take-all platform — with Symbian's fate tied less to headline US share than to whether its developer ecosystem survives Android's advance in the markets where it dominates.
The trend: Smartphone platform share is splitting along regional lines, with North American narratives centered on iPhone and Android undercounting Symbian's grip elsewhere even as Android's rise pressures it directly.