Strategy Analytics, a market research firm, expects that up to 4 percent of the smartphones sold in the U.S. in the last quarter of the year will be powered by Google Android.
Neil Mawston, Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “We forecast 10.5 million smartphones to be sold in the United States during Q4 2008. We estimate smartphones with Google’s Android operating system, led by HTC of Taiwan, will reach 0.4 million units in the quarter, for a 4 percent market share. Android is a relatively late entrant and it will join an increasingly crowded market alongside Blackberry, Microsoft, Apple, Palm, Symbian and LiMo.”
The prediction appears to be based on two assumptions: That Google’s brand power will give Android a big push and a rumoured selling price around USD$200.
Strategy Analytics goes on to indicate that Android’s long term success will depend on the ability of vendors to create designs with wow factor and an intuitive user-interface and on Google to continue to deliver compelling online services (such as search, mapping, and advertising).