Apple & Google Dominate Smartphone Market During 2011

We’ve been talking about smartphone trends quite a bit lately, but with 2011 behind us, there’s no better time to take a look at the overall growth (or losses) experienced by some companies through the year. It’s of little surprise that both Apple and Google dominated the share, but it comes at the expense of RIM and Microsoft. Palm? Non-existent, as far as comScore is concerned.

Over the course of the past 18 months, Apple’s marketshare increase was 4.5% while Google’s was a mind-blowing 27.3% – that’s more than one-fourth of the entire market captured in a mere 18 months. While Apple’s 4.5% seems pale in comparison, its marketshare has already remained impressive for some time, so growth has naturally slowed. Combined, Apple and Google command 75.6% of the smartphone market.

During the same period, RIM has experienced a constant decline, starting off with a 37.6% share but since dropping down to 19.7%. Ouch. Likewise, Microsoft’s already paltry 10.8% share dropped to 5.7%.

Given these numbers, 2012 should be an interesting year for the smartphone market because it’s hard to predict where things can go from here. Will Android continue to dominate while taking share away from Apple? Will Microsoft finally strike back and see its first increase in at least 18 months? Will we ever see a webOS phone added to the list? We’ll have answers to all of these questions in roughly 365 days!