Smartphone Use to Grow 44 Per Cent by the end of 2013

The installed base of smartphones worldwide will grow 44 per cent to 1.4b by the end of this 2013, according to a new study from ABI Research. Of those phones, 57 per cent will be on the Android OS while 21 per cent will run on iOS. 

ABI also anticipates a favourable year for Blackberry and Windows Phone, suggesting that the thus-far “duopolistic” mobile industry may be in for a shake-up in the coming months. ABI estimates 45m Windows Phones and 20m BlackBerry 10 phones to be in active use by the end of 2013.

“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 would then effectively close the window of opportunity on further sales success,” said ABI senior analyst Aapo Markkanen. “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.”

As for tablets, the growth rate is predicted to be 125 per cent by the end of the year – 268 million tablets in active use – with 62 per cent built on iOS and 28 per cent on Android. Windows-powered tablets are expected to reach 5.5m.