Chris Jones

VP & Principal Analyst

Chris Jones was one of the three founders of Canalys in 1999. He led the company into its first market-specific analysis area, smart mobile devices, in 2000. With Chris as the lead mobile analyst, Canalys quickly became the leading provider and standard source of market data and analysis for smart mobile devices in EMEA. With the launch of the worldwide analysis service this leadership position continued at a global level. Using Chris’s superior knowledge of EMEA distribution channels, Canalys also began tracking the smart mobile device market by distribution channel and end-user type on a quarterly basis.

The Smart Mobile Device Analysis service is renowned for its quality, consistency, clear device segmentation, timeliness and respected team of responsive analysts. Chris and the team continue to add value for service clients by increasing the depth and breadth of this research. Chris has also helped expand Canalys’ mobile research coverage into adjacent markets with the Mobile Messaging Analysis and Mobile Navigation Analysis services.

Since 2003 Chris has led the research into the mobile navigation market, first in EMEA and, since 2005, on a worldwide basis. Canalys produced the industry’s first quarterly shipment tracking and analysis service which, like Smart Mobile Device Analysis, has become the recognised source. Chris has given keynote speeches at every Canalys Navigation Forum so far. He also often presents at public events on mobile trends, especially around navigation and location-based services.

Chris has worked on many confidential consultancy projects for Canalys clients over the years. Recent projects have centred on the mobile navigation market, the converged smart mobile device market, market entry strategies, channel strategies and vendor due diligence. He is regularly quoted in the influential business and trade press on mobility issues.

Prior to joining Canalys, Chris spent five years with Gartner, mainly within Dataquest’s European PC group. His principal activities were to manage Dataquest’s quarterly PC market programme in Europe, to lead its research into handheld computing and to represent Europe within Dataquest’s worldwide PC analysis efforts. Before joining the PC group, Chris worked on projects for several research units, covering the networking, document management, storage and software markets.

Chris graduated from the University of the West of England, Bristol where he obtained a Higher National Diploma (HND) in Business Studies specialising in marketing.