Nokia, Symbian still lead smartphone market, Gartner says

Gartner, an information technology research firm, has found that while Nokia and Symbian were still solid leaders in the smartphone market in 2009, they might have to watch their backs as Apple and RIM have gained some ground. In a recently published study, Nokia controlled 36.4% of the worldwide market share, but they might not be too comfortable though, the Finnish manufacturer saw a 2.2% loss. Samsung is in a distant second at 19.5%, but they've gained 3.2%, while Motorola and Sony Ericsson aren't looking so good with only 4.8% and 4.5% respectively after dropping considerably since 2008.

As far as smartphone sales go, Symbian leads by a lot at 46.9% of the market share - but that's 5.5% drop from 2008. Could this be the beginning of a serious slip? RIM and Apple's iPhone OS have both gained from last year, up to 19.9% and 14.4% from 16.6% and 8.2% respectively. Windows Mobile and Linux both saw drops. And while Android might not look like much down there at the bottom of the list, they've grown from 0.5% to 3.9% in a single year. We can only imagine what their figures might look after 2010.

[Images via Gartner]