Happy Birthday Cell Phone:
April 3, 1973, 40 years old!
But it’s the younger models that are doing the best in capturing market share. Look at that recent youngster, Android. They are up 13%, ahead of Apple’s iOS, down 7%. The oldster, BlackBerry, has fallen and can’t (seem to) get up from loss of 81%. Windows Phone, who just entered this market, is up, would you believe, 52%!
A lot of change has taken place since the first cell phone (the 10” 2.5 lb behemoth in photo) was introduced 40 years ago. The first commercial cell phones weren’t on the market for another 10 years and cost $3500!! That’s 1983 $$’s!
The first Blackberry, introduced in 1996, complete with thumbwheel and phone keyboard was really a two-way pager. The familiar color screen Blackberry cell phone came out just 10 years ago in 2003. However, current market share trends (3 mo. ending Feb 13) indicate that the BlackBerry may soon be only a memory compared to 2012.
BTW – the World Wide Web, not counting the individual predecessor efforts which were not linked together, came about in 1982 with a linking protocol known as TCP/IP, and wasn’t commercialized (.com) until 1995.
April 3, 1973, Martin Cooper, developer on 6th Avenue in Manhattan, NY, made the first cell phone call.
Here’s the chart of OS market share for the quarter ending February 2013.
Source: Kantar WorldPanel – Smartphone sales by operating system – U.S
The BlackBerry and Windows Phone market share numbers demonstrate dramatic changes from the same quarter a year ago. Windows Phone looks to be finally taking off, with 52% growth December, January, and February of this year compared to the same three months in 2012. BlackBerry, that old standby of the last 10 years, is falling off a sales cliff, with an 81% plunge in sales.