Android Remains the Dominant OS, as Smartphones are Predicted to take 82% Market Share in 4 Years

On Monday, some new research was put out, which shows that by 2017 smartphones could have about 82% of the market share. This is a trend that is continuing since the iPhone was released in 2008. Smartphones will be dominating worldwide very soon. The graph shown above also shows those that are moving away from those feature phones (or as we sometimes call them, dumb phones) as well as those in emerging markets such as the Middle East and Asia. Very recently, smartphones had

surpassed 50% of the global market share, which is actually mostly because of those emerging markets.

It’s quite possible that smartphones could hit 82% market share before 2017. Especially with companies like Motorola putting out really cheap phones that are actually pretty good, like the Moto G. Motorola stated that the Moto G was targeted at the emerging markets like the Middle East and Asia, but they will also be selling it in other markets like the US and Europe as well. Which is definitely going to help get more feature phone users onto smartphones.

In 2017, we should be seeing over 1.8 billion smartphones sold, according to the research done by NPD. This data also projects that most of those phones being sold will have a 4-4.9 inch display. Which really isn’t that surprising. In fact, now in 2013, we’re seeing more 4-inch phones in the wild than larger ones like the Galaxy Note 3. There’s definitely a market for the phablet, but not everyone wants one, which is fine and why we love Android. Because of choice.

Android has been growing quite a bit in the past two years. Of course it helps that we’re seeing the OS mature as well as more and more great devices being available on every carrier. Back in the early days, there was a different phone for each carrier. Like the Galaxy S, there was the Epic 4G on Sprint, the Captivate on AT&T, Fascinate on Verizon, while T-Mobile just had the Galaxy S 4G. It’s nice to see it all be the same phone now and seeing it launch almost at the same time on each carrier. Which is definitely helping Android grow. I personally think we’ll see more than 82% market share for smartphones by 2017. What do you think?