Research Firm Predicts Apple Market Share To Peak At 22% In 2013

Apple is doing exceptionally well in both the smartphone and tablet markets. Apple has had some harsh criticism over its iPhone 5 and the fact that the latest smartphone out of Cupertino is an incremental update at best. However, Apple does continue to be extremely dominant in the tablet market with incredible popularity for the iPad.

Research firm ABI Research announced this week that it predicts Apple's market share will peak at 22% in 2013 and will remain flat through 2018. The research firm is also predicting that smartphone shipments will account for 50% of all handset shipments by 2014. ABI predicts that by 2018 2.4 billion smartphones will ship accounting for 69% of all handset shipments.

The company is also predicting that LTE equipped handsets will rapidly gain market share and account for 35% of all handset shipments and 50% of all smartphone shipments by 2018. The research firm predicts that Samsung will continue to see its Android smartphones improve and that Samsung Android-powered devices will account for 90% of the company's smartphone shipments.

However, the firm predicts that the future smartphone OS landscape will be influenced by the importance Samsung places on operating systems such as Bada, Tizen, Windows Phone, and Android. ABI expects LTE smartphones to penetrate the market significantly and to be driven by the rapidly growing low-cost smartphone segment. The company believes that smartphones with wholesale average selling prices of under $250 will account for 62% of smartphone shipments by 2018.

[via ABI Research]