Android looms large in corporate smartphone strategies

Fifty per cent growth in smartphone market attributed to the rise of Android

Android handsets are winning over enterprise IT buyers

The rise in popularity of devices that use the Android operating system has been a significant factor in a 50 per cent rise in the smartphone market in the second quarter of 2010 compared with the same period a year ago.

Smartphone manufacturers shipped a total of 63 million units in Q2 2010, compared with 41.9 million units in Q2 2009, according to research firm IDC.

Google's smartphone partners, such as HTC and Samsung, posted the highest year-on-year growth rates in IDC's second quarter 2010 smartphone vendor rankings. In fact, four of the top 10 vendors, all of whom predominantly ship Android-powered smartphones, posted year-over-year growth rates that were greater than 100 per cent.

Ramon Llamas, senior research analyst with IDC's Mobile Devices Technology and Trends team, now expects Android handsets to become more prevalent in the workplace, saying their functionality is attractive to business users and the open nature of the platform is appealing to IT managers.

“Within businesses, we’re seeing a rise in smartphone use although it’s mainly for BlackBerrys. However, we're getting a lot of users coming in and saying: ‘I’d like to connect this smartphone to the network, can you do it for me?’."

He added that the main reason that IT managers were looking at Android devices when forming their business smartphone strategy was because it is open source.

“This is a benefit when it comes to security – that’s something that's important to IT managers,” said Llamas.

“If you talk to IT managers, after cost, their priority is security – can the device be made secure? Can it be wiped if it is lost? With Android, the answer is yes, absolutely, but there are some still some trips and caveats that IT managers will have to look at.”

Why Android has become so popular

Commenting on the rise in popularity of Android devices, Llamas said that the platform has a variety of advantages over Apple’s iPhone.

“Android has become the de facto, clear Apple iPhone competitor – not so much because of the devices, but because of the experience,” said Llamas.

He added that, although it varies across the world, Apple tends to limit itself to just one network in most markets, which puts a lot of people off buying an iPhone.

“Not a lot of people are satisfied with the choice of just one carrier. There are a lot of folks saying: ‘I wish they had that sort of technology on my network’, and Android is available across many networks.”

However, Llamas acknowledged that the triple digit growth seen over this past quarter for Android handsets has been partly because there weren’t many devices available that used the Android platform a year ago, meaning it grew from a low base.

“It was mainly HTC and some of its carrier partners – now it’s the Motorolas, the Samsungs but even more so HTC; there are some prominent devices that are getting a lot of press.”