One in four smartphones globally used for work

The worldwide market for business smartphones saw strong growth in Q1 2015, growing 22.6% compared to Q1 2014, said research firm Strategy Analytics. Business smartphones now account for 27% of the worldwide smartphone market, up from 26% the same quarter a year ago.

Source: Strategy Analytics.

Shipments of personal-liable smartphones (i.e. “bring your own device,” or BYOD, phones) drove market growth in Q1; personal-liable devices* made up for over two thirds of all business smartphone shipments in the quarter, the research firm said.

While personal-liable devices dominate worldwide business smartphone shipments, with BYOD prevailing in North America and Asia, some regions are more resistant to the BYOD trend than others. Such regions include Western Europe and Central Europe, where corporate-liable devices are the dominant types of business smartphones. 

Android was the most dominant OS in terms of business smartphone shipments in Q1, accounting for nearly 60% of all business smartphones (corporate- and personal-liable). It was also the dominant BYOD device; 68% of personal-liable shipments in Q1 were Android. Apple's iOS accounted for only 27% of BYOD shipments in Q1, but was the dominant platform in terms of corporate-liable smartphones, with 48% of Q1 corporate-liable shipments. 

The difference in Android/iOS shipments between the corporate-liable and personal-liable categories reflects the continuing corporate perception that iPhones are “safer” than Android-based devices, says Phil Hochmuth, Director of Mobile Workforce Strategies research at Strategy Analytics.

“Enterprises that want to maintain control and ownership of employees’ smartphones deploy iOS because of perceived security advantages over Android and strong support for iOS from business software and cloud providers,” Hochmuth says. “However, with the emergence of Android for Work and stronger support for Google’s platform across the enterprise ecosystem, we predict this perception gap will shrink among enterprise in the near future.”

Interested?

Read more about the Global Business Smartphone Quarterly Tracking: Q1 2015 report

*Strategy Analytics defines personal-liable devices as devices purchased by the end-user and expensed back to the company or organisation, or devices purchased outright by individual users but used primarily for business purposes linking to corporate applications and backend systems.