All experts agree that Apple, Inc. has certainly made a name for itself as the king of the smart phone market in recent years, but the competition is getting not only tougher, but a lot bigger, too. Now that Google, Inc. has moved in on the market with its Android rival smart phone, it appears that Apple is at long last being given a serious run for its money. In the 2nd quarter of 2010, use of Android’s Google based operating system has grown by nearly 30 percent, a market improvement over Apple’s stats for the exact same quarter which was only a little over 20 percent. In terms of the whole market, Research in Motion’s Blackberry is still top thanks to its utilitarian use in government and corporate circles with a full 35% of the market. The iPhone trails right behind at 28%, but Android is gaining steadily at 13% at this present time. Among smart phone users in the last 6 months, Nielsen research shows that Google has shown the most significant levels of growth and managed to top all other operating systems on the market.
RIM is hoping that their latest Blackberry 6 platform, which is set to arrive late in 2010, will help them push their market share up, but Apple is not only newer to the market, they have already reached the iPhone 4 in just 3 years, winning over a myriad fans to their platform despite the fact that its primary appeal is with tech savvy consumers rather than mass purchase corporate buyers. RIM will have to work hard, analysts say, if they want to own more than just the corporate market share.