iPhone Continues to Gain Market Shares

Apple´s most successful product iPhone continues to improve its market share value while competitors dip in form. The only other platform in the top five to see an increase in shares was Google Android which supports many of the leading handset operating systems.

The result released by comScore showed Apple represent 27.3 per cent of mobile handsets making them the market leader for a single company. Google Android continues to extend its lead over apple however and tops the charts with 43.7 per cent of the share due to it availability on a number of handsets produced by different manufacturers. Nokia, Microsoft and RIM all dropped percentage shares.

According to many analysts, the release of Apple´s new iPhone 4S looks set to keep the US multi-media giants in tow, though because the upgraded smartphone is widely considered as a stopgap prior to the release of the fifth-generation handset one market analyst believes consumers may hold off upgraded their mobiles until Apple release the iPhone 5. However the immediate availability of the iPhone 4S is still expected to dispatch around 21 million units in the company’s first quarter of 2012.

Alex Gauna of JMP Securities said he feels the iPhone 4S does not possess the panache of earlier models because of widespread news of the imminent arrival of the unique iOS5. Though the attractive improvements of the upgraded fourth-generation handset still have plenty of appeal, he predicts attention will quickly turn to the much anticipated fifth-generation smartphone in which case the iPhone 4S will be considered a limited addition and somewhat of a collector´s item.

The key factor to Guana´s report is that the hardware on the iPhone 5 is expected to include 4G wi-fi connectivity and come with a wider screen therefore competing with Android-based handsets already on the market. He said: “Given Android’s greater range of price points and form factors, we would expect this trend to continue.”

Apple will hope the dual-core 5 processor and improved 8-megapixel camera will drive sales of the iPhone 4S whilst the prospect of iCloud is a unique feature which is still gaining momentum. The introduction of voice recognition feature Siri also has strong sales potential though it is expected that Google will not be far behind introducing the same feature to handheld devices supported by Android.

The iPhone 4S will be available on 12^th October.