IDC is projecting Google's Android OS to have a 39.5 percent market share in 2011, growing to 45.4 percent market share in 2015.

It's a surprise to see Symbian expected to have 20.5 percent market share this year. That maybe due to the el-cheapo candybar phones (or non-smartphones) bought by folks in developing countries. iOS will have a 15.7 percent market share this year, while Blackberry will have a 14.9 percent market share.

Symbian will be replaced by the Windows Phone, which will start appearing on Nokia phones starting next year. Windows Phone will take a 5.5 percent market share in 2011, which will grow to 20.9 percent in 2015. I don't know how IDC concluded that, considering Nokia sales are falling, and the Windows Phone OS plain sucks.

I doubt the study, period. But it does point out the dominance of Android, which means more people should be writing apps for the OS. At some point, the Android Marketplace needs to be larger than Apple's App Store.

In fact, I'd expect Android to take a chunk of Windows Phone's market share. There's even no mention of Meego or other smartphone OSes we might see. Anyone for Ubuntu on smartphones?

IDC is projecting smartphone shipments to top 450 million units this year. Shipments totaled 300 million units this year.