A new Gartner report on smartphone operating system market share in Q2 2008 shows that RIM grabbed second place and outsold the Windows Mobile operating system for the first time ever. This cannot be good news for Microsoft which also narrowly missed on its goal to sell 20 million Windows Mobile licenses in its 2008 fiscal year.
The latest Gardner report shows that Symbian hung on to its lead with 57 percent of global Q2 sales by operating system (down though from 65.7 percent from Q2 2007). RIM was second with a 17.4 percent share (nearly doubling from 8.9 percent a year ago) and Windows Mobile followed in third with 12 percent (up only slightly from 11.5 percent the same quarter a year ago). Linux held down fourth and Apple came in fifth at 2.8 percent (up from 1 percent in Q2 2007).
In terms of devices, Nokia held down first place with a 47.5 percent marketshare, followed by RIM (17.4 percent), HTC and Sharp both at 4.1 percent and Fujitsu at 3.3 percent. RIM showed the greatest quarter growth (compared the same quarter last year) at 126.4 percent. It was followed by HTC with 119.6 growth. All in all, worldwide smartphone sales reached 32.2 million units in Q2 2008, up 15.7 percent from Q2 2007.
It will be interesting to see how the numbers change over the following year with the successful launch of the Apple iPhone 3G, the imminent arrival of Google Android, new RIM devices such as the Bold and the Thunder and the arrival of Windows Mobile 7.