Canalys

As people around the world become increasingly more reliant on their mobile devices, the app market continues to grow. New research from market analyst firm Canalys shows that the top four app stores hit 13.4 billion downloads worldwide in the first quarter of 2013. This is an 11 percent increase over all of 2012 combined.

"Apps have had a huge impact on the way consumers use mobile devices, what they value, and what they expect from smart phones and tablets," Canalys chief analyst for analytics Adam Daum said in a statement. "They are now central to … Read more

Market researcher Canalys has again put Apple in top spot among PC makers with an overwhelming 20 percent market share.

Apple shipped 27 million units in the fourth quarter, while HP and Lenovo both shipped around 15 million (HP slightly more than Lenovo), putting them in the No. 2 and No. 3 spots, respectively.

Samsung is also on the rise: it made an appearance in the top five for the first time, pushing Dell out of fourth place.

All of this is possible because Canalys counts "pads," i.e., tablets, as PCs -- not a ludicrous concept considering … Read more

Things are not looking good for PC makers in the age of the iPad.

Market researcher Canalys makes this point with PC shipment stats, which are a function of the way it sees the PC market. In short, tablets are PCs too. (And note Canalys defines "PC" generically, not the traditional definition of a Windows PC.)

That gives Apple an overwhelming lead over No.2 Hewlett-Packard. In the second quarter, Apple shipped about 21 million PCs versus about 13.5 million for HP, according to a Canalys report released today. Lenovo was a close third with 13.1 … Read more

Apple is out-shipping traditional PC vendors by a wide margin on the back of strong iPad sales, a marketing research firm has found.

In the fourth quarter, Apple became the leading worldwide client PC vendor by shipping more than 15 million iPads and 5 million Macs, representing 17 percent of the total 120 million client PCs shipped globally in the fourth quarter, according to Canalys.

Hewlett-Packard was a distant No. 2 with about 12.7 percent.

"We're going through the biggest shift the PC industry has seen in 20 years. It's very difficult to grow in the … Read more

Apple is likely to outshine Hewlett-Packard as the world's top PC maker before the second half of next year, says research firm Canalys, but it'll need some help from the iPad 3.

Currently the world's second-leading PC vendor, Apple has seen its share of the market jump to 15 percent from 9 percent over just the past year. That growth is largely due to heavy demand for the iPad, which Canalys considers a personal computer.

But fourth-quarter iPad shipments in the U.S. may take a hit from Amazon's Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble's … Read more

Android has now surged past Symbian to become the world's top smartphone platform, says a report out today from research firm Canalys.

Global shipments of Android-based phones hit 32.9 million in the final quarter of 2010, pushing Nokia's Symbian down to second place with 31 million smartphones shipped.

The beneficiaries of the demand for Google's mobile operating system were the vendors themselves. Respectively, LG, Samsung, Acer, and HTC watched their sales volumes jump 4,127 percent, 1,474 percent, 709 percent, and 371 percent from the last quarter of 2009, according to Canalys. Together, HTC and … Read more

Shipments of Android smartphones worldwide jumped 886 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, according to a report released Monday.

Growth in the United States was particularly robust, market researcher Canalys said in the report.

The entire U.S. smartphone market grew 41 percent in the second quarter year over year, making it the largest smartphone market in the world by a huge margin. Android devices captured 34 percent of that market in the quarter, representing growth of 851 percent and making it the largest smartphone platform in the U.S.

"In the United States, for example, we have seen the largest carrier, Verizon Wireless, heavily promoting high-profile Android devices, such as the Droid by Motorola and the Droid Incredible by HTC," Canalys principal analyst Chris Jones said in a statement.

Android smartphones are also seeing a surge in demand in the Asia-Pacific region. China, specifically, is the world's second largest smartphone market. The number of Android devices shipped hit almost 475,000 in the second quarter, up from virtually no presence in that country a year ago.

Nokia's smartphones are still tops in China, but Android smartphone makers such as Motorola and Samsung are pushing forward, as are local vendors, giving Android devices a 7 percent share of the country's market in the second quarter, Canalys said.

"The story in the Asia Pacific region is similarly optimistic around Android," Canalys senior analyst TY Lau said in a statement.

Android phones come from a variety of manufacturers, including HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, and LG.

Among specific smartphone manufacturers worldwide, Nokia still leads the industry overall with 38 percent market share.… Read more

Apple's blowout quarter for iPhone 3G sales lifted it into second place among all smartphone vendors worldwide.

Canalys released market share stats on Thursday showing strong growth for the smartphone market even as the worldwide economic situation takes a turn for the worse. A total of 39.9 million smartphones were shipped during the third calendar quarter of the year, a 28 percent increase over last year's totals.

Nokia is still the leading vendor by a comfortable margin, holding 38.9 percent of the market. But shipments declined slightly, and market share fell 12.5 percent, compared to … Read more

Apple has managed to develop the third-best selling smartphone in the world, according to a new report from Canalys.

The market researcher's latest tally of the "smart mobile device" market found that Apple's iPhone had 6.5 percent of the worldwide market in the fourth quarter. That might not sound like a lot, but it's good enough for third place behind Nokia, which has a whopping 53 percent of the market, and Research In Motion, which has 11.4 percent. And last year, of course, Apple had 0.0 percent of this market.

Canalys doesn'… Read more