Android Phone Demand Up 250%, iPhone Down

CWmike writes "A 'monstrous' jump in demand for Android-equipped smartphones has turned the market upside down, according to a retail pollster. Of the people who told ChangeWave Research in a mid-December survey that they planned to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 21% said they expected to purchase an Android phone. That number represented a 250% increase over the 6% that pegged Android as their mobile OS of choice when ChangeWave last queried consumers' plans in September. 'That change rivals anything that we've seen in the last three years of the smartphone market,' said Paul Carton, ChangeWave's director of research, adding that the sudden surge in consumer interest in Android had 'roiled' the market. 'This is an indication that Android has finally caught consumer interest,' added Carton, who cited the recent advertising campaign for the Motorola Droid smartphone as the reason why interest in Android has skyrocketed. Android's leap translated into good news for Motorola and HTC, the most prominent makers of Google-powered handsets, with the former reaping most of the benefit. Motorola's share of smartphone purchases in the next 90 days shot up from 1% in September to 13% in December. Carton tagged the company's Droid as the reason. '[It's] the first increase for Motorola we've seen in three years,' Carton said." Here is the ChangeWave report.

Comments

Sounds like real data to confirm the survey

[Suki I]

Motorola's share of smartphone purchases in the next 90 days shot up from 1% in September to 13% in December. Carton tagged the company's Droid as the reason. '[It's] the first increase for Motorola we've seen in three years,' Carton said."

The survey could mean lots of things without this bit of confirmation data. Sales are going in the same direction as the survey.

Re:Newton's AAPL

[Anonymous Coward]

iPhone has had stereo bluetooth since 3.0.

Re:Umm...

[PopeRatzo]

Safari is ahead of Chrome^H^H^H Opera.

Not as of a few days ago. Chrome passed Safari in browser market share, according to digitaltrends.com.

Remember, that's a beta Google product vs Apple's flagship browser.

Safari isn't even the browser of choice for Mac users, for chrissake.

Re:I get the feeling Google sold their soul..

[mjwx]

Not only that, it seems like the next version of Android (2.0) has some sort of exclusivity to Motorola for now

You do know that 2.0 is in the AOSP (Android Open Source Program) so the code is freely available to anyone, there are community ROMs that run 2.0 on my HTC Dream albeit very badly. The problem is that other manufacturers are planning to deploy it on their new hardware lines not their old ones. Motorola just released earlier then Samsung or HTC (who just announced their 2010 line up).

Re:Competition works

[Liquidrage]

Actually, it's in "you didn't read the fucking post". Apple's control over their development and market restricts apps and it's noticeable. Good example? Apple pulled Google voice from the store because the phone already made calls and had voicemail. That many like Google voice better didn't matter. And it's not just google stuff. SMS, virtual keyboards, etc... The Android market is open and full of stuff that competes with default pieces of the Android OS.

That Apple is free to do what they want, and that you and your grandma love it, isn't an issue. But as a geek it should be important to you that you have options. I don't care if the options are closed sourced pay apps or not. Notice the OP here said "real development".

Re:I am not surprised

[Algan]

My iPhone 3G lasts about 4 days if used smartly and sparingly. That is, Edge for voice, data through Wifi, only a few short calls per day, no bluetooth, no music/video/games. Pretty much the same functionality you got from your Palm Treo :)