RIM, Windows Mobile and Symbian marketshare are looking worse according to Nielsen

[famousringo]

Well, Symbian never did have much presence in NA, so that's hardly a surprise.

RIM falling to 5% is a crushing defeat, but not an unforeseeable one. I still don't think it's too late for RIM to make a comeback. They're still profitable and have a big cash hoard, but they really need a very clever game plan to stay in this. Even if they could hit feature parity with Android and iOS, I don't think it would be enough. They need to become a clearly superior solution to at least some customers to retain a place in this market.

It's disappointing how much WinPho 7 has completely failed to catch on, though. It seems trapped, stealing enough control over the user experience that the carriers favour Android over it, but not attracting consumers enough that the demand forces carriers to promote Windows phones anyway. You could say that a handset has two customers, the carrier and the end user, and other platforms seem to be more attractive to both customers.

This data corroborates an NPD report that put iPhone US marketshare at 43% back in January, and suggests those market gains will be persistent.

I think this is going to be the shape of the US smartphone market for some time to come. I don't expect any big, dramatic shifts will occur for a few years. Android and iPhone will wrestle each other for a handful of percentage points, while the bit players fight to claw their way out of oblivion.