The latest figures from the International Data Corporation (IDC) show that the worldwide smartphone market grew 79.7% year-on-year during Q1 of 2011. The IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker indicates that smartphone manufacturers managed to ship 99.6 million devices during the quarter. This is almost twice the amount (55.4 million units) noted for Q1 of 2010.

 

For this quarter the top three smartphone vendors were Nokia, Apple and RIM. Despite the fact that Nokia announced its union with Microsoft, the Finnish manufacturer maintained its leadership position in the smartphone market. It snapped up a 24.3% market share by shipping 24.2 million units. Apple also performed well setting a new record for shipment volumes during a single quarter, shipping 18.7 million devices, giving it an 18.7% market share. 

 

RIM rounded up the top 3 taking 14% of the market by shipping 13.9 million units. Though Samsung and HTC didn’t make the top 3, it is worth noting that they both achieved the largest year-on-year growth rates, with Samsung managing a 350% growth rate, compared to this time last year and HTC showing an increase in sales of 229.6%. 

 

 

 

According to The Nokia Blog, Nokia’s CEO Stephen Elop was asked if the Finnish manufacturer considered using the MeeGo operating system (OS) along with other companies. 

 

“We discussed Meego with HTC, RIM, Samsung, LG, and Motorola. One manufacturer was fairly interested in Meego and the others have their own plans, and they were not particularly interested in Meego. They were afraid that Nokia had too much power in Meego”, Elop answered.

 

Although Elop didn’t say which company was the one interested in MeeGo, it is presumably LG seeing that the company is reportedly going to present prototype devices during the MeeGo Conference next month in San Francisco (May 23-25). LG is apparently showcasing some MeeGo ports on a number of prototype devices, such as tablet PCs and smartphones.

 

 

 

The next iteration of Google’s Android mobile operation system (OS) will be known as Ice Cream Sandwich. According to androidandme tech blog, this has come to light after a Google employee posted a comment in the Android Issue Tracker.

 

Romain Guy, a Google developer working on Android, was responsible for this comment. The name of course doesn’t reveal anything about the functionality the new OS is going to offer. It also doesn’t reveal which version of Android it will be replacing, whether it will be destined for tablets, following in the footsteps of Honeycomb (Android 3.0) or for smartphones, coming after Gingerbread (Android 2.3). 

 

 

 

 

It has been a busy week for BlackBerry holding company Research In Motion (RIM), with the company unveiling its new Bold 9900 and 9930 smartphones and the fourth annual BlackBerry Partners Fund Developer Challenge, amongst others. Now the Canadian manufacturer has revealed that South Africans will be able to see its iPad rivalling tablet PC, the BlackBerry PlayBook, in action at the BlackBerry stand during the 6th annual ITWeb Security Summit.

 

This summit will be taking place from 10–11 May 2011 at the Sandton Convention Centre and will showcase many of the firm’s technologies (not just the PlayBook). Sinisha Patkovic, director for BlackBerry Security at RIM, is one of the international IT security experts that will be sharing their knowledge during this event. He will be delivering his keynote presentation on Wednesday, 11 May 2011 at 08:30, covering the topic: “Security strategies for a changing world: the balance between risk and user benefit.”