Ovum Analysts: iPad Will Be Surpassed by Google by 2015

The Telegraph:

By 2015, however, when 150 million sales are expected, the proportion of tablets based on Apple software will have plummeted to 35 percent, the analysts Ovum said. […] The main beneficiary will be Google, and by 2015 its share of tablet sales will have risen to 36 percent, Ovum said, edging ahead of Apple, currently the world’s most valuable technology firm.

So we’re predicting things four years out now. Let’s look at Ovum’s track record from four years ago.

June 2007:

Apple has set itself a target of 10 million units by the end of 2008, but we think this will be a challenge. The device is selling at a high price point and will not be a mass market device.

Apple wound up selling around 14 million iPhones in calendar year 2008. In March 2007, regarding whether Apple would ever open the iPhone to third-party developers:

Even if [the iPhone] is opened up to third parties, it is difficult to see how the installed base of iPhones can reach the level where it becomes a truly attractive service platform for operator and developer investment,” Cripps countered.

The Ovum analyst added that even if a Software Development Kit (SDK) was to be released, Mac OS X developers would have a hard time porting desktop variants of their software to the iPhone due to basic differences in elements such as the user interface and form factor.

Apple’s apparent ditching of conventional application paradigms for mobile phones seems ill-advised if the company really wanted the iPhone to be perceived as a smartphone and to take on mobile juggernauts such as Nokia, Microsoft and Motorola.

Well, I have to admit they nailed that one.

★ Friday, 21 January 2011