Google’s Android operating system and Apple’s iOS are dominating the smartphone market holding an overwhelming portion of it, but there are many smaller developments that aim to take a piece of that sweet pie. The Firefox OS by Mozilla is one of them and it is a platform built focusing around HTML5. Does it really stand a chance against the behemoths in the space, though?
Latest research from Strategy Analytics says no. At least not initially. The researchers see an opportunity for Mozilla to grab only 1% of the market in 2013, against an expected 67% for Android.
That disappointing figure is despite the efforts from Mozilla and signed partner agreements with some of the biggest names in the industry including Telefonica, Sprint, Deutsche Telekom and ZTE.
Interestingly, Mozilla with its Firefox OS is targeting one booming smartphone segment, that of affordable devices. Expectations are that there will be nearly 300 million sub-$100 smartphones sold this year alone.
“Overcoming Android will not be an easy task,” Strategy Analytics researcher Neil Mawston said.
At the same time, this doesn’t mean platforms don’t stand any chance - rather the industry has matured enough for newcomers to need to take more time to establish themselves, and that’s a logical thing.
“It took Android just two years from commercial launch to overtake Symbian and go from new entrant to established global leader, so things can change extremely fast in the smartphone industry.”
What’s certain is that nowadays it’s very hard to establish oneself as a platform and almost as easy to lose relevance as we’ve seen with Symbian. Are you looking to an alternative platform like the Firefox OS for affordable devices?
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