Motorola to possibly overtake HTC as top Android phone maker this year

Android Phones

Motorola to possibly overtake HTC as top Android phone maker this year

February 2, 2010 | by Robert Nelson

HTC, Motorola

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I think lots of people associate HTC with great Android handsets at this point. But that does not mean we should be forgetting Motorola. They may have been a little later to the Android game, but according to a recent DigiTimes report they may be preparing to overtake HTC as the top Android phone maker before 2010 is over.

“Moto’s shipments of Android phones will account for a 34.7% share of the segment compared to HTC’s 31.9%.”

Of course, looking at this past years ending numbers we saw HTC in the clear lead with a 64.5% share. That said though, it seems that some of this is based on what we have heard about Motorola releasing up to 30 Android phones in 2010. Based on that number, DigiTimes is estimating that could mean Motorola would ship somewhere between 12.5 and 15.6 million phones before the end of the year.

I would say that it is nice to see Motorola making a comeback, but in this case having the most phones sold does not sound as good as having the best.

[via IntoMobile]

HTC, moto, motorola

4 Comments

Franssales says:

February 2, 2010 at 12:29 pm

Hm, thats what they plan. But they do not come to virgin market, but to a new one, which has Google Nexus One ( + others Google phones?), and such very strong players as LG, Acer and Samsung with their many new models. Anyone wishing to make money with Android platform will face mercyless competition, which will throw at least some companies out of the game – before that the profits will be nonexistent or even negative. I see that Motorola has to try with Android, since there is nothing else which could succeed.
Rich says:

February 2, 2010 at 1:12 pm

@Franssales – Rumours say Motorola will be making the next Google phone anyway.
Thomas says:

February 2, 2010 at 1:16 pm

I don't think Motorola will succeed with that. First off they plan to release too many products. Look at Apple before Jobs came back in the late 90s. They had so many products it was simply silly. Job's habit of killing most of these products made the company profitable again (among other things). The second aspect which should not be forgotten is that Motorola obviously does not feel comfortable to "play the Android game". E.g. the GSM version of the Droid called Milestone is locked down in a way that prevents you from creating custom ROMs for it. This puts off enthusiasts and tinkerers and most if not all of them are planning to go HTC because HTC doesn't do cryptographically signed boot loaders and crap like that. Just head over to Facebook to see the PR desaster Motorola is currently experiencing because of that (the fact that we still don't have the 2.0.1 update which the Droid got what, like 2 months ago?, doesn't help them neither) –> facebook.com/motorolaeurope
edickson says:

February 2, 2010 at 2:37 pm

competition is always great for us consumers. might mean better prices(which i doubt since phone price seems to be fixed: around $200 w contract, $600 without for most phones). But it defenitly means great phones will come out since they will always try to top each other