Marketshare for phones with qwerty keyboards?

August 8, 2011 2:15 PM

How popular are phones with physical qwerty keyboards? I'm curious to find hard data that shows how popular cellphones with keyboards are (US, Global, anything).

iPhone is popular and has no keyboard. Some Android-based phones have keyboards, but the most popular ones seem to be touch-only.

I know physical keyboards are still very popular, but I'm guessing the trajectory of marketshare for them is headed down rather than leveling out or going up against the "only virtual keyboard" contingent. Can anyone point me to some data?

posted by jragon to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

I think keyboard (slider) phones are less popular now compared to few years ago because the population of smart phone buyers is larger and more diverse, phones now have interesting apps - the web and Youtube and maps, that don't require keyboards.

Business users I think tend to want keyboards (Blackberry) and heavy testers might want them to (Sidekick). And before the web, texting and email were they key smartphone apps.

For hard data, you could count the number of user reviews of slider vs non-slider phones on Amazon or. -Net.
posted by zippy at 2:42 PM on August 8, 2011

You can sometimes find market share breakdowns from places like comScore, Neilsen, Gartner, and other types. See this Neilsen report. It doesn't have what you want, but if you could make a guess as to the amount of each manufacturer's share that is qwerty (e.g. RIM 95%, Apple 0%?) you could get a ballpark figure. That's up to you though, I don't know where you would find this data.

I agree with your gut feeling that qwerty is declining. RIM has long been the champion of qwerty and they are pushing touchscreen phones now, which means they are feeling some bite.
posted by PercussivePaul at 3:04 PM on August 8, 2011

that should have ended with "Amazon or C-Net."
posted by zippy at 6:02 PM on August 8, 2011