Shipments of Android-based smartphones are expected to reach 6.5 million units by the end of this calendar year, according to research from Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute (MIC).
Shipment forecasts for handsets are set to reach 31.8 million units in 2013 while overall supply of Android-equipped products is forecast to reach 126 million units in 2013.
According to MIC industry analyst Kate Huang, “currently products equipped with the Android platform are still mainly smartphones. Faced with the threat from the Android platform, Symbian could accelerate the opening of its system in order to attract more companies to Symbian. Windows Mobile could lower licensing fees in order to reduce the impact from Android.”
Applications will also drive take-up, if Google chooses to invest in the acceleration of the app platform, the report claims. Currently, there are only 13,000 Android Market applications, still far behind the 85,000 available from the App Store.
“If Google accelerates the promotion of paid download programs in other regional markets, it might significantly increase the willingness of application service developers to invest, and it could rapidly increase the number of application programs in order to attract more users,” Huang added.