First preliminary looks at 2012: Android grew, Windows Phone still outsold by Symbian and bada

We might have just missed the end of the world, but the end of 2012 is definitely nigh and this means it is time to take a look back and see what changed in mobile throughout the year.

If we had to put it shortly, we’d say - everything.

Nokia, from the world’s biggest phone maker tumbled catastrophically and when it comes to smartphones it is in dire straits. Samsung has cannibalized a huge part of its market share, and is now the biggest manufacturer when it comes to both feature and smartphones.

Apple has continued rising steadily, cementing its position as the second biggest phone maker after Samsung and second biggest platform after Android.

The rise of Chinese companies only continued, and now Huawei is expected to take a confident third place in the ranking of biggest smartphone makers for the year.

The data below is preliminary, but it comes from analyst and former Nokia executive Tomi Ahonen, who has one of the best track records around, predicting extremely accurately the catastrophic fall of Nokia and Symbian after Stephen Elop. Here are his preliminary expectations for 2012 sales:

TOP 3 SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS 2012
1 Samsung . . . . 220M - 235M units about 32% market share
2 Apple . . . . . . . 140M - 150M units about 20% market share
3 Huawei . . . . . . . 55M - 60M units about 8% market share
Race for 4th is between Sony, ZTE, Nokia and RIM.
Others in Top 10 for the year are HTC, LG and Lenovo
Motorola has fallen out of the top 10 in global smartphone makers for hte full year

TOP 3 SMARTPHONE OPERATING SYSTEMS FULL YEAR 2012
1 Android . . . . . . 465M - 485M about 66% market share
2 iOS . . . . . . . . . 140M - 150M about 20% market share
3 Blackberry . . . . . 33M and about 5% market share
4th will be race between Samsung's bada and Nokia's Symbian
Windows Phone is definitely going to be ranked 6th operating system by sales in 2012

Interestingly enough, Motorola is no longer in the top 10 of smartphone makers, and it is possible that Nokia as well drops out soon, chased by little known Coolpad from China. But let’s wait and see how those Holiday sales were before jumping into conclusions - and don’t forget, those are all preliminary estimates.

source: Communities Dominate Brands