​Apple outlines vision for enterprise, but Android dominates business smartphone landscape

Worldwide business smartphone shipments reached 116.8 million units in Q4 2015, an increase of 24.3 percent from the previous quarter, and 12.7 percent increase from Q3 2014.

According to Strategy Analytics, Android was the dominant platform worldwide, accounting for almost 2/3 of all business smartphone shipments in Q4 2015.

Meanwhile, Apple iOS had 37.9 percent of all shipments, while Microsoft and Blackberry accounted for merely 2.4 percent and 0.5 percent of shipments respectively.

Worldwide, Personal Liable smartphones are still the dominant type of business smartphone, with over two-thirds of shipments falling into this category, versus 34 percent of shipments being corporate liable.

“Although BYOD remains a fast growing trend within enterprises, corporate liable purchasing continues to increase as companies still want full control over mobile access to corporate networks for many of their users,” says Gina Luk, Senior Analyst, Strategy Analytics.

In terms of OS performance, iOS took “significant corporate-liable market share” from Android, and emerged as the top choice for businesses in terms of corporate-liable devices.

“Apple’s vision for the enterprise has really taken shape over the past year, and we believe the standardised OS approach across iPhone and iPad as well as the partnership with IBM, have played a significant role in boosting that,” adds Andrew Brown, Executive Director of Enterprise Research, Strategy Analytics.

Looking forward, global business smartphone sales will grow from 392 million units in 2015 to 606 million in 2020.

Consequently, Luk believes corporate liable device growth will outpace personal liable device growth worldwide of the next five years at 9.2 percent CAGR, as many companies continue to struggle with developing comprehensive BYOD policies and strategies, offsetting the trends in BYOD over the last several years.

“However, BYOD volume will continue to account for the majority of the global business smartphone devices into the future, although corporate liable volume will grow over the next couple of years at nearly a double digit growth rate,” Luk adds.

“China and the United States will be the largest business smartphone country markets in 2016, accounting for half (50 percent) of worldwide business smartphone sales.”

By 2020, findings show that nearly half of the smartphone’s sold annually in North America will be personally owned and used for business purposes at some level.

Closer to home, Asia Pacific’s BYOD sales will be over a quarter of its total annual volume, but will be nearly three times the unit volume in North America.

“Cost savings and allowing users their own device choice are the top reasons employees are allowed to purchase and use their own mobile devices,” Brown adds.