Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Although Nokia's Symbian smartphones have the lion's share of the local market, the company said its devices are now facing more competition in the Kingdom.

"Symbian is facing stiff competition not only in Jordan but also at the global level. Other operating systems are being adopted worldwide," Thomas Rizkallah, head of Nokia’s business-to-business operator channel for the Middle East and Africa, said in an interview with The Jordan Times this week.

A recent Arab Advisers Group report indicated that Symbian phones are the leading smartphone operating systems in Jordan, with a 62 per cent market share, followed by iOS and BlackBerry in second place, and Android in third.

Noting that Android’s market share is currently growing rapidly across the world, Rizkallah said Nokia has recently reached a partnership with Microsoft under which it will adopt the Windows Phone technology as its principal smartphone system.

Nokia and Microsoft will collaborate closely on joint marketing initiatives and a shared development roadmap for the future evolution of mobile products under the partnership.

"We are focusing on partnerships at this stage and on innovation to remain the market leaders in Jordan and elsewhere," he said.

In 2011, Android is projected to represent 38.5 per cent of the global smartphone market, followed by Apple’s iPhone OS with 19.4 per cent and Symbian with 19.2 per cent, according to Gartner Technology Research.

Android is an open-source platform backed by Google and Samsung, along with major hardware and software developers, such as Intel, HTC, ARM and Motorola, according to web sources.

Smartphones constituted 41.6 per cent of total mobile handsets in Jordan by the end of July, according to the Arab Advisers Group report.

The report also revealed that 95.8 per cent of iPhone owners and 87.5 per cent of BlackBerry owners use applications on their smartphones, compared to 57 per cent of Symbian users.

According to www.insightsmena.com, 75 per cent of Jordanians own mobile phones.


* Jordan Times