Emerging trends in mobile OS platforms

Abstract

Smartphones with a market penetration of over 31% in US among mobile users have become a mass-market product within a short 4-year period since the launch of iPhone. Tablets are showing similar trajectory in terms of adoption. Currently iPhone and Android own the majority market share in the consumer space and RIM is yet to find any real success. In this thesis work, historical and current landscape for the mobile market industry has been studied. Leading Smartphone operating system vendors and their strategies for managing multi-sided platform were studied and relevant impact on market share was analyzed. Google with a fragmented eco-system and Apple with integrated architecture took a very different approach to market leadership and these approaches were studied in detail. Apart from the above, this thesis sought to answer the following questions: 1) How can the Smartphone OS platform vendors sustain their dominance in the mobile eco-system as other players in the value chain look to increase their share of value-capture? And 2) what kind of pacts can they make in the long run among themselves to retain their market power?