Apple rapidly gaining ground

Figures released yesterday by Symbian show second quarter sales of 19.6 million units sold. Good news for Symbian until you consider that 159 Symbian based units have been released in the past 6 months compared to just one from Apple!

More interestingly, the figures show that Symbian’s growth was only 5% for the past year which isn’t great when figures show Apple are shifting 800,000 units per week! That’s not to say Symbian is by any means dead. The open source OS still holds the biggest market share of all but, at the same time, faces increased competition from Apple and RIM. With Google throwing their Android OS into the ring Symbians position could change - but not anytime soon.

The main contender at this moment is Apple. The iPhone 3G’s sales hit 6 million units since launch and climbing.

So, could Symbian be knocked off the top spot? If Apple continues to ship the iPhone 3G at current levels then they could conceivably take the top spot in about a years time. Factor in the Android question and Symbian could be trailing in an even shorter space of time.

But Nokia’s decision to open source Symbian may just give the OS the boost it needs to keep the top spot.

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