The total number of smartphones will reach 1.4 billion by the end of this year, out of which 57% of the devices will be powered by Google’s Android operating system while 21% of them will be powered by Apple’s iOS, according to a new report from ABI Research.
The research however predicts that despite strong dominance of Google and Apple the ‘future won’t be quite as duopolistic as it may seem now’.
According to the report, there will be about 45 million smartphones powered by Windows Phone and 20 million smartphones powered by BlackBerry 10 OS,which was launched this week.
ABI Research senior analyst Aapo Markkanen said 2013 should be seen as relative success for both Microsoft and BlackBerry.
"For the end of the year, we expect there to be 45 million Windows Phone handsets in use, with BlackBerry 10 holding an installed base of close to 20 million.
By the end of this year the analysts expect that there will about 268 million tablets in active use out of which 62% of them will be built on iOS and 28% of them will be powered by Android.
"Microsoft will also have 5.5 million Windows-powered tablets to show for it," Markkanen added.
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Smartphone user base would grow 44% during this year compared to last year while tablet user base is expected to grow 125%.
"The greatest fear for both Microsoft and BlackBerry is that the initial sales of their smartphones will disappoint and thereby kill off the developer interest, which then would effectively close the window of opportunity on further sales success.
"Our view is that the installed bases of this scale would be large enough to keep these two in the game. It will definitely also help that both firms have actively kept the developers’ interest in mind while designing and rolling out their platforms."
