With the mobile market increasingly fragmented, ME online editor Stuart O'Brien asks the question...
It's been written before in this column that a sea change is occurring in the world of mobile handsets.The long-established players in Western markets are finding their hegemony threatened by nimble newcomers and the frightening pace of technological change.
Both of those trends were neatly summed up by Toshiba's launch of its TG01 smartphone last week.
The device is from a Far Eastern company not much noted in Europe as far as mobile is concerned and is based around a touchscreen interface.
The market - and the kinds of devices within it - is almost unrecognisable from when Toshiba released its last major European devices in 2007. Even stuff from six months ago is looking old.
Article continues belowAdvertisement
Take Toshiba itself. It's one of the 'others' - that previously ignored category in handset manufacturer market share breakdowns released by analysts.
In IDC's latest report the companies outside the 'top five' of Nokia, Samsung, LG, Motorola and Sony Ericsson took 18.7 per cent of global sales in 4Q08. Twelve months before that 'others' took 16.8 per cent.
Apart from the very notable 1.9 per cent, the biggest difference between the two 'others' snapshots is that huge corporations like Apple now lurk within the category, waiting to pounce on their already-wounded 'top five' prey.
RIM's in there too of course, as are the likes of HTC and a resurgent Palm. By the time IDC publishes its 2Q08 report Acer, Dell, Hyundai and Garmin-Asus could all be registering handset sales.
Apple is arguably the world's pre-emminent handset company right now if measured in terms of mindshare and not volume.
In fact, everything generating the mobile news column inches is in the 18.7 per cent. It won't stay there forever.
With 'off the shelf' OSs and chipsets available in the form of LiMo, Android and Snapdragon (Qualcomm), there will be a few more entrants before the year is out.
The top five as we know it in Europe has never applied in places like Japan and South Korea, with their rich tapestry of local providers.
As the market becomes ever more fragmented, could its days as a measure of manufacturer potency in the West be numbered?
