nokia news: Apple, Android, RIM gain market share

Nokia, Microsoft and Linux continue to lose ground in the shift to smarter phones

Source: Gartner, Inc.

A report from Gartner issued Tuesday confirmed the trends reported three weeks earlier by IDC. Both firms are witnessing a global shift as users around the world trade in devices designed to make phone calls and send text messages for more powerful phones designed to also surf the Web.

Gartner recorded a 0.9% drop in cellphone sales for 2009 and a corrresponding 23% growth in smartphone sales. IDC calls them by a different name — “converged mobile devices” — but registered a similar pattern, showing smartphone sales up 15.1% for the year.

The spoils, however, were not evenly distributed among the players. In particular:

Nokia’s (NOK), whose Symbian operating system once dominated the market, saw its share erode once again (Gartner: down 5.5 points to 46.9%; IDC: down 1.1 points to 38.9% )
Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone share contiues to grow sharply (Gartner: up 6.2 points to 14.4%; IDC: 5.3 points to 14.4%)
Research in Motion’s (RIMM) Blackberry also gained ground, but more slowly (Gartner: 3.3 points to 19.9%; IDC: 4.2 points to 19.8%)
Phones running Google’s (GOOG) Android OS registered a nearly eight-fold gain in market share, albeit from a smaller base (up 3.4 points to 3.9%, according to Gartner)
Microsoft (MSFT) and Linux both lost roughly 3 points to end up with 8.7% and 4.7% shares, respectively, according to Gartner. Microsoft is hoping to turn that around with its new Windows 7 Mobile Series OS, introduced in Barcelona last week.

Below: Gartner’s and IDC’s 2009 smartphone spreadsheets.