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Android Sales Surpass iPhone Sales
gollum123 writes with this excerpt from VentureBeat:
"Smartphones based on Google's Android mobile operating system outsold Apple's iPhone in the US during the first quarter of 2010, according to a report by research firm The NPD Group. The data places Android, with 28 percent of the smartphone market [last quarter], in second place behind RIM's Blackberry smartphone market share of 36 percent. Apple now sits in third place with 21 percent. NPD points to a Verizon buy-one-get-one-free promotion for all of its smartphones as a major factor in the first-quarter numbers. Verizon saw strong sales for the Motorola Droid and Droid Eris Android phones, as well as the Blackberry Curve, thanks to its promotional offer. Verizon launched a $100 million marketing campaign for the Droid when it hit the market in November 2009, which likely contributed to strong sales in the first quarter as well."
Preston Gralla notes that it's not all bad news for Apple; this report could help their case in upcoming antitrust discussions.
Or should that be iMpossible?
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Apple is getting ready to release a new iPhone in the next few months. I'm sure this kind of regular product cycle makes consumers not want to upgrade for the quarter before a new release. I know I'm going to skip the 3GS and wait for the "4" or whatever the new one is called.
-Bill
There's a reason why Windows is still 95% desktop share, while Mac OSX is only 4%
Investment in existing software plays a huge roll in that. Smartphones don't have that issue (though a very small percentage of people have spent a ton on app downloads).
When a company makes a business decision to be sole manufacturer of a product, and not to license it to anybody, it is not a surprise that a relatively open product out-sells it. Even when that single product happens to have at least 10 similar yet different versions.
Android phones are not as open as Maemo/MeeGo phones. Andoird could have been way cooler if Google have picked up Maemo instead of starting from scratch using Java. That said, I don't mind that all the mobile games targeted for Android should eventually run on Maemo.
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> (Sits back and waits for the karma burn.)
Yes, that karma burn is going to have nothing to do with your statement objectively actually being flamebait. It adds nothing at all to the discussion. Even people that agree with you that it was unavoidable that Android phones were going to surpass iPhones can at most ignore your post. There's nothing interesting, informative or insightful about it.
Maybe just don't post shit next time.
Apple sales reps will be boycotting mobile phone shops dressed in grey hoodies advising people "These are not the droids you are looking for."
There are RDP and VNC clients for both iPhone and Android.
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
I dunno ... I have AT&T and I generally still have 1-2 bars of signal in places where my friends with iPhones drop coverage. I think it's more a sucky antenna issue than a bad coverage issue, at least around here.
Apple is committed to making the same mistakes it made in the 80's. It amazes me how they think they can break the natural laws of the market and make their business model work. In five years the iPhone's market share will pale in comparison to Android and it will be for the sole reason that Apple cares more about its vision than its customers. Android is the Windows of the mobile world.
or else!
There's been anecdotal evidence that there isn't as much money to be made writing Android apps as there is to be made writing iPhone apps.
One theory has gone "that's because the user base isn't there yet; when the users show up, the developers will come".
Well. It looks like the users are showing up in numbers that are becoming difficult to ignore. So now it's time to keep a close eye on app developers, and see what happens! Is Android more like the XBox 360 (where a lot of third-party developers make a lot of money), or more like the Wii (where almost nobody but Nintendo ends up making much money)?
It's all going to be very interesting to watch. Yay competition!
Why would any customer care if it is profitable or not? The key question for the customer is if it is SUSTAINABLE and I think with Android it definitely is.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Or that the iPhone is an inferior product in the Enterprise market. Or that people don't like dealing with the AT&T network. There could be a million different reasons for this.
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Verizon's droid does porn advertising campaign is what really hooked me into my purchase. If Jobs hadn't pointed it out to me I probably would have just bought an iPhone.
Hopefully, the 'Droid can come out with a version that beats Apple's 4G series that are approaching the market.
Indeed. It's also a wifi hotspot for 8 devices, and can stream HD video out of an HDMI port on the phone, in case you're one of those people who likes to watch videos on something other than your phone.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
It's important to note that the iPhone is in one of the low-sales points of its product cycle for these figures. Everybody who's paying attention *KNOWS* that Apple is going to introduce a new model of the iPhone next month, with greater capabilities and probably at the same price as the current model. Anyone who can wait until summer solstice to buy their first iPhone is waiting, and the oodles of people who bought an iPhone 3G in the second half of 2008 are waiting to become eligible for a subsidized upgrade 2 years later. Kind of like unemployment figures, iPhone sales figures need to be "seasonally adjusted" to be meaningful.
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yes, being more open will always result in more sales. That's how Linux was able to surpass Windows so quickly.
Apple is also the market leader in PC sales by that standard. And Sony's beat the crap out of VHS manufacturers, after all they were the only ones who made Betamax recorders.
The main thing of concern for Google is probably whether or not the ecosystem is open to their way of making a profit. Maybe they saw a problem looming, with the walled garden approach of Apple.
Google wasn't really involved in activelly contributing to healthy mobile landscape when Blackberry was dominating in the US (still is actually) and Nokia globally (still is)
One that hath name thou can not otter
OTOH, since Verizon is giving smart phones away in an effort to inflate the non-Apple smart phone numbers,
Verizon is giving away phones to get more 2 year, $70/month contracts
I guess it depends on where you live. I see just as many Android phones as iPhones nowadays. Hell at a boardgame party Saturday night (I am that lame) we even whipped 'em all out to compare. 3 iPhones, 3 flavors of Android phones (including my G1) and 1 Palm Pre. The most amazing thing is that a lot of the Android phones that I see are being used by non-tech people and they seem to be as happy with the experience as the iPhone users.
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The difference is that a smart phone is basically an application platform like the PC. The iPOD is not, it's basically a souped up media player. And don't forget that although these kind of markets are highly volatile, it may take a long time before a relatively good product like the iPOD is taken over by its competitors.
It's nice during the short period when you're in transit, but it presents a dilemma once you get there because it is so deprived of basic capabilities that people do tend to want.
For example I go on holiday, I want to take pictures. I need something easy to plug my camera into to download and quickly crop and edit pictures. The iPad is just horrendously horrible for this due to Steve's obsession with locking it down and removing all the standard ports from it. So you are confronted with the dilemma of bringing both the iPad AND the laptop and doubling up on a lot of capabilities or doing without a lot of the basic things most people *do* want to do when they are travelling.
The big question is when "multitasking" is no longer the major difference between platforms
Well, that won't happen any time soon.
You do realize that the upcoming iPhone OS update doesn't add multitasking, right? What it adds is a limited set of background services that apps can ask the OS to perform. It will take some wind out of Android proponents' sails, because those background services are tailored to a handful of popular applications for multitasking -- playing internet radio, finishing downloads, etc. -- but while Android developers will be able to keep developing new uses for background code, iPhone developers will be stuck with the limited set of background operations that Apple has pre-approved.
what will be the next Android marketing slogan?
The ongoing circus that is the App Store approval process should provide plenty of slogans to come. How about "Android: the phone that doesn't block Pulitzer-winning cartoonists"? (OK, it needs a little polishing...)
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Hell at a boardgame party Saturday night (I am that lame) we even whipped 'em all out to compare.
TMI, dude... TMI... ;)
Stop! Dremel time!