Though Apple continued to be the world’s most profitable maker of wireless technology solutions, the company lost market share in the fourth quarter of 2009, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Apple might be encountering the same phenomenon that affected cell phone manufacturer Motorola, when sales of its initially popular Razr flip phones declined sharply after "two years of selling the same device with the same look," writes Wall Street Journal reporter Niraj Sheth, citing an analyst with ABI Research.

However, writes Ars Technica, "to say that Apple did poorly during the quarter would be inaccurate – instead, while Apple did well, the overall smartphone market did better. Coincidentally Apple’s last drop in smartphone market share occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008, leading us to believe the drop may be related to the holiday season and customers giving less-expensive smartphones a shot in a poor economy."

Analysts are still unsure how the recent release of the iPad tablet PC will affect sales of smartphones in particular and of the iPhone in general.

This entry was posted by Mobility Management News Desk on Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Managing Mobile Devices News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

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