Apple now No. 2 in corporate smartphone market share

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
While Research in Motion continues to dominate the corporate smartphone market, new data shows Apple to be chipping awake at the BlackBerry maker's lead after having recently bludgeoned Palm to become the second leading supplier of advanced handsets to businesses.



A report from ChangeWave Research due for release shortly will show the iPhone to have recently gained 5 points in corporate market share, making it the second most popular business phone with a 14 percent share.



The gains came largely at the expense of Palm, who dropped 4 points while falling into third place overall with an 11 percent share. However, Apple was also able to grab a share point away from larger rival RIM, whose commanding lead now equates to a 76 percent share of the market.



Word of Apple's breakthrough arrives amid troubling data from corporate IT purchasing surveys which shows "a collapse in US business spending of historic proportions." Looking ahead to the first quarter of 2009, spending projections are the worst ever seen by ChangWave in its studies that date back to 2001, with an unprecedented 45 percent of respondents saying their company's IT budget will decrease or completely collapse.



One positive note that came out of the surveys was that a total of 35 percent of IT companies plan to buy smart phones next quarter, a 1 percent increase from back in August. Again, RIM dominates forward looking spending with a78 percent share, down just 1 percent point. However, planned spending on iPhones showed the strongest momentum, rising 5 points to a 22 percent share.







Of interest is that RIM?s corporate share is heavily concentrated among larger companies with more than 1,000 employees, while three quarters of Apple?s share is among small- to medium-sized companies with under 1,000 employees.







"In a further confirmation that the 3G iPhone is having a positive impact on Apple?s corporate business, nearly one-in-five respondents (18%) report the release of the 3G version has made their company More Likely to purchase Apple products in the future," ChangWave says in its report.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 19
    No mention of Windows Mobile. Goodbye WM, Steve Balmer must be crapping in his pants. Remember he said the iPhone would never work for business?? Some people have no vision, what an idiot!



    I'm hoping to get an iPhone next year, I hope Apple works out some of the kinks by then, copy paste, video chat, pay as you go...But I'm sure I'll love it anyway.
  • Reply 2 of 19
    Makes sense; please realize that there 1000+ iPhone companies such as Genentech,

    where, given the choice between RIMM and Apple, the Blackberries pile up

    as so much "E-waste".
  • Reply 3 of 19
    Nice positioning by Apple. When corporate budgets can no longer afford smartphones, only consumers will continue to buy smartphones.
  • Reply 4 of 19
    nagrommenagromme Posts: 2,834member
    22% planned iPhone buying? That's more than 1 in 5 business phones. Apple may not be targeting enterprise the way they're targeting the rest of us, but anyone who still makes a blanket statement that "the iPhone is not for business" is a little out of touch (no pun).
  • Reply 5 of 19
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    I'm glad to see RiM is doing well.
  • Reply 6 of 19
    boogabooga Posts: 1,082member
    Nice numbers. But to put them in perspective, the current market share numbers for RIM are roughly similar to the market share numbers Apple has for iPod buyers, and few are suggesting Apple could lose their dominance there. They key will be to see if those planning an iPhone purchase actually follow through.
  • Reply 7 of 19
    taurontauron Posts: 911member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by webhead View Post


    No mention of Windows Mobile. Goodbye WM, Steve Balmer must be crapping in his pants. Remember he said the iPhone would never work for business?? Some people have no vision, what an idiot!



    I'm hoping to get an iPhone next year, I hope Apple works out some of the kinks by then, copy paste, video chat, pay as you go...But I'm sure I'll love it anyway.



    I am convinced that today there isn't a single good software product by Microsoft. Not a single one: from Office, to Vista, to Mobile, its all garbage.
  • Reply 8 of 19
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by webhead View Post


    No mention of Windows Mobile. Goodbye WM, Steve Balmer must be crapping in his pants. Remember he said the iPhone would never work for business?? Some people have no vision, what an idiot!



    I'm hoping to get an iPhone next year, I hope Apple works out some of the kinks by then, copy paste, video chat, pay as you go...But I'm sure I'll love it anyway.



    I believe this is about HW marketshare. Palm does sell WM enabled devices.
  • Reply 9 of 19
    lafelafe Posts: 252member
    I liked how the Apple plots on the graphs are green.



    Subliminal messaging!
  • Reply 10 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by solipsism View Post


    I believe this is about HW marketshare. Palm does sell WM enabled devices.



    I was speaking to the fact that windows mobile is neither #1 or #2 in business use, but is now trailing Apple and RIM. I wasn't suggesting palm sold WM devices, only stating how dumb Steve Balmer is for not seeing the iPhone vision.
  • Reply 11 of 19
    jccjcc Posts: 326member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Booga View Post


    Nice numbers. But to put them in perspective, the current market share numbers for RIM are roughly similar to the market share numbers Apple has for iPod buyers, and few are suggesting Apple could lose their dominance there. They key will be to see if those planning an iPhone purchase actually follow through.



    Not the same thing.
  • Reply 12 of 19
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post


    Of interest is that RIM?s corporate share is heavily concentrated among larger companies with more than 1,000 employees, while three quarters of Apple?s share is among small- to medium-sized companies with under 1,000 employees.





    That sounds positive. Didn't the politicians, when politicking out there this past election tout "small business" as the biggest factor in job creation?



    And when we've all heard about layoffs, they were 1,000 from this large company or 4,000 for that large company or reducing workforce by 10% or closing "X" amount of stores, or this chain filing for bankruptcy, etc. Grant it, a small business or medium business may have their problems where they have to let some people go in these slow economic times and it might not make the headline news, but back to the politicians touting of "small business is what is creating the jobs", I'd rather be aligned with the statement, "while three quarters of Apple?s share is among small- to medium-sized companies with under 1,000 employees", where there seems to be more potential.



    Or not. Who knows... If I did, my investment portfolio would look a heck of a lot better...
  • Reply 13 of 19
    solipsismsolipsism Posts: 25,726member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by webhead View Post


    I was speaking to the fact that windows mobile is neither #1 or #2 in business use, but is now trailing Apple and RIM. I wasn't suggesting palm sold WM devices, only stating how dumb Steve Balmer is for not seeing the iPhone vision.



    Gotcha.
  • Reply 14 of 19
    It appears the BlackBerry is the iPod of the corporate world. No need to worry about the iPhone pushing it aside anytime soon. That is a really huge gap. If Apple were to buckle down and get some corporate distribution tools in place, the iPhone could close the gap. However it is unlikely that Apple is interested in getting serious about displacing the BlackBerry. Passively, the iPhone isn't doing badly making slight headway into the business world.



    The consumer still comes first because the money is easier to get with less resistance. So many people think the BES solution is too costly, yet it appears to be the most secure. Until Apple can get corporate clout behind at least some of it's products Apple will continue to be looked down upon by WS as just a high-tech toy company. That's a shame.



    Well RIM did put a number of years into producing solid products for business and Apple never did that. For Apple, the consumer is king. The iPhone really hasn't been around that long and the Mobile OS is still relatively immature. Maybe another year or two and the iPhone will make serious inroads into business. Meanwhile RIM will continue to sit on top in the business world and also grab market share in the consumer sector.
  • Reply 15 of 19
    One positive note that came out of the surveys was that a total of 35 percent of IT companies plan to buy smart phones next quarter, a 1 percent increase from back in August. Again, RIM dominates forward looking spending with a78 percent share, down just 1 percent point. However, planned spending on iPhones showed the strongest momentum, rising 5 points to a 22 percent share.



    Not understanding... 78% RIM, 22% Apple and 5% Palm is 105% planned buyers?
  • Reply 16 of 19
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Not quite as strong of a #2 position as I had expected. I think the phrase might have to be "distant second".
  • Reply 17 of 19
    kenckenc Posts: 195member
    ...are unreliable. They were the same source that said Mac sales were going to be poor, which led Katie Huberty of MS to downgrade Apple's stock, twice in one week, over a month ago. Remember that? That was due to one of Carton's Changewave surveys. I'd be very careful citing any of their stuff, especially seeing as Mac sales were up 28% year-over-year in October, after setting sales records last quarter. Their surveys are fine for macro trends over a year's time, not for month-to-month forecasting.
  • Reply 18 of 19
    Hope you do understand that this article should have 'on the US market' in its title...

    Just as another survey shows, Nokia is still on top. Falling, but on top. I guess Apple would have gained more market share if only it was on the free not-locked market (and had slipped some MMSes in the iPhone )...

    Now when the first Nokia touch device is just about to hit the market and rumors are around for the N-Series Touch, I'm expecting 2009 to be quite interesting...
  • Reply 19 of 19
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member
    Ummm... I think you've misunderstood the report.



    If you look at the numbers in the first graph, the numbers add up to ~100%. Are you telling me that HTC, Samsung, Motorola and Nokia have zero corporate sales? That seems highly dubious.



    From reading the report, it seems that they only surveyed Palm, RIM and Apple buyers. In fact the graph clearly states "Companies Who Currently Provide RIM/Blackberry or Palm Smart Phones". It gives no indication that Apple is second in the US corporate market.



    And as klitchev points out, this is US-only data.
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