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IDC may have some impressive survey clout and reach, but when it comes to actually delivering decent reasoning behind their numbers, my sub-five-year-old daughter can draw better conclusions by consulting her Polly Pocket dolls.

IDC's latest report concludes that by 2015, the smartphone market share will look drastically different than today, with Apple falling well behind the pack. While I agree with IDC's assessment that the market will have shifted, their conclusions are way off.

IDC Expectations by 2015

Since IDC's entered the guessing game, I'd also like to give give it a shot (perhaps with a little help from my daughter and her Polly Pockets) and see how we fair.

• Apple is not only making great great gains, but there is no evidence their iPhone and iOS platform overall is slowing down — or will peak in the near future. In fact, the latest survey's reveal Apple is poised to make massive leaps forward in China, and break their first $100 billion year ever in 2011. How Apple will suddenly get squeezed by others playing catch-up makes little to no sense.

• IDC suggests that somehow RIM will still be around in 2015. As it stands now, once HP enters the ring there will be too many platforms in the mobile space and consolidation is going to take occur. Once Microsoft has firmly entrenched itself with Nokia, they will look to acquire the fledgling RIM and convert further market share. It's not likely to give Microsoft momentum, but it does buy them time and eliminates choice, which is typically where Microsoft excels.

• Another "great" assumption made by IDC is that Nokia customers, currently flocking to iOS and Android devices as they can, will for some reason will buy another Nokia handset with a completely different OS in Windows Phone 7. This is a ridiculous conclusion by IDC. When users are confronted with change they look at multiple options. Some will continue with Nokia and give Windows Phone 7 a shot, but based on recent Windows Phone 7 history, it appears more than half will pick another hardware device and OS. This is great news for Apple and Google alike.

• Where is HP? IDC does not even show HP's webOS on their OS market share roadmap, which is foolish in assessing the market. HP appears dead serious about the mobile space and has the scale, channel, and customer base to make a relevant slice of share happen. In fact, we wouldn't be surprised to see many would-be Microsoft and Nokia customers opting for HP's webOS devices.

Here you can see how T-GAAP assess the market in 2015 vs IDC's best guess. Which one do you side with? We'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter below.

T-GAAP Expectations by 2015

5 Comments

1. Merideth T. ~ March 30, 2011 18:32
   IDC predicts Windows smartphone platform will overtake Apple by 2015. You buy that? Todays survey of nearly a thousand gives the answer to this question: http://www.macsurfer.com/?poll=results
2. AdamC ~ March 31, 2011 07:55
   When 2015 comes everyone will remember how wrong is IDC guesswork.
3. AdamC ~ March 31, 2011 08:02
   I believe both companies are very loose with their interpretation of iOS. Is iOS referring to the iPhone or Apple's other i-devices? If it is just the iPhone then android would have a larger market share through buy one get one free and get a free android when a customer sign up a line. But if they include Apple's other i-devices than I don't think android would have that lead and probably trail behind iOS.
4. Bob Forsberg ~ March 31, 2011 11:37
   Dream on.
5. franklin ~ June 27, 2011 02:34
   Windows Phlop 7 %20.9 or the market! Hahahhahahahahahahahah. yeah.. right. I guess it's unfair to comment as it's the end of june and already their model is WAY WAY off. WP7 has LOST market share since this article was published. That said, I would have still laughed at this ridiculous "expectation" from IDC if I had read it when it was first published. Hey IDC Dewy didn't win! and WP7 is loosing market share! IDC needs to move the decimal %2.07 market share is more like it!

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