Global HTML 5 phone sales to hit 1bn by 2013

7 Dec 2011

The iPhone 4S

Worldwide HTML 5 phone sales will surge from 336m units in 2011 to 1bn units in 2013, according to new research.

According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, HTML 5 has quickly become a high-growth technology that will help smartphones, feature phones, tablets, notebooks, desktop PCs, televisions and vehicles to converge through cloud services.

“We forecast worldwide HTML 5 phone sales to surge from 336m units in 2011 to 1.0bn in 2013,” Neil Shah, analyst at Strategy Analytics, explained.

“Growth for HTML 5 phones is being driven by robust demand from multiple hardware vendors and software developers in North America, Europe and Asia who want to develop rich media services across multiple platforms, including companies like Adobe, Apple, Google and Microsoft.

“We define an HTML 5 phone as a mobile handset with partial or full support for HTML5 technology in the browser, such as the Apple iPhone 4S.”

HMTL 5 quickly becomes a high-growth technology

HTML 5 has quickly become a high-growth technology that will help smartphones, feature phones, tablets, notebooks, desktop PCs, televisions and vehicles to converge in the future.

Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, said: “HTML 5 will be a pivotal technology in the growth of a multi-screen, 4G LTE cloud that is emerging for mobile operators, device makers, car manufacturers, component vendors and web app developers.

“With its potential to transcend some of the barriers faced by native apps, such as cross-platform usability, HTML5 is a market that no mobile stakeholder can afford to ignore.”

However, despite surging growth of HTML 5 phone sales, Thomas Kang, director at Strategy Analytics, cautioned that HTML 5 is still a relatively immature technology.

“HTML 5 currently has limited APIs and feature sets to include compared with native apps on platforms such as Android or Apple iOS.

“It will require several years of further development and standards setting before HTML 5 can fully mature to reach its potential as a unified, multi-platform content-enabler,” Kang said.

John Kennedy is a journalist who served as editor of Silicon Republic for 17 years

editorial@siliconrepublic.com