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Android Outsells iPhone In Last 6 Months
tomhudson writes "Despite all the hype about Apple's latest iPhone, Android has sold more in the last 6 months (27% of all smartphone sales) than Apple (23%). The gains for Android are coming at the expense of RIM (still #1 at 33%, down from 45% a year ago), Windows Mobile (11%, down from 20%) and the iPhone (down from 34% at it's peak 6 months ago). If the current trend continues, Android is expected to be #1 within the year."
Boy Genius and Engadget are circulating a report that says that Android has already overtaken Apple and RIM in the US. Android devices collectively represented a 34% share of the US market in the quarter, and with growth of 851% Android became the largest smart phone platform in the country.
Turns out Linux doesn't suck and it is good for something mainstream after all. I still haven't seen the real "year of the Linux desktop" but Android has already given us a year of the Linux phone, and we barely even realized it.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
The numbers for the iPhone are of course going to reflect that the apple crowd has been holding off and waited for the new generation iPhone 4. The numbers for Q3 will be more interesting.
And then again, who cares, it's just a phone.
Tell your friends about xenu.net
...but hasn't the iPhone sales been slow the past 6 months due to anticipation for the new model coming out last month?
Pretty good is actually pretty bad.
If this trend continues, Android will have 100% of the market in just over 8 years!
I love linear extrapolation.
Or rather, the exclusivity deal between AT&T and Apple.
Anecdote: I had lunch over the weekend with a friend who lives in a part of the country that AT&T doesn't cover at all. He and his wife had seen other peoples' iPhones while travelling outside of that area, and all things being equal, would have preferred to buy iPhones, but couldn't. (Yes, they could have bought one someplace else, sucking up a useless contract, jailbreaking, etc., but come on -- that's not a real option for most people.) They ended up getting Android phones instead.
AT&T's commercials assert that it covers 97% of Americans, but if you live in or spend much time in one of the areas (more than 3% of the map) it doesn't cover, the iPhone loses by default even if Apple's marketing is successful.
Yawn... These are sales from January to June - before the iPhone 4 was released. People were intentionally holding off purchases because they knew iPhone 4 was coming out. Wake me up if they outsell iPhones for the next 6 months.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I am sorry, but this comparison is pretty crap.
RIM = 1 company
Apple = 1 company
Android = oodles of companies...
Its comparing apples to oranges here.
Of course you do see that Android is doing well. Something that I expected and it will continue. This is why I question RIM's, Microsoft's and Nokia's sanity of trying to go against either Apple or Android.
Though I wonder how long Android will do well. Here is the thing, people buy gadgets, but upgrade devices. With the iPhone 4 people upgraded. With RIM people upgraded. Nokia less so, and Android is an open question mark. I don't know either way and only time will tell.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Yeah, the iPhone wasn't even close to being the #1 Smartphone in the US. That honor goes to Blackberry. So why compare to Apple? Ah, because it's cool to hate on Apple.
Slightly different markets. People have Blackberries for business, mostly. iPhones and Android phones are more personal consumer use products.
If we're going to ignore the business/personal distinction, then I'm going to hate on Macs for doing terribly in the business server market. You just can't win! :)
My employer-provided phone is an HTC EVO 4G (Android). I could have chosen a Blackberry or an iPhone (or even Windows Mobile). And I work for a large Fortune-500 company. Corporate America is opening up to the new options.
(My company is large enough that they've outsourced the phone purchasing to some other company that specializes in it. I went to that company's web site, selected the phone that I wanted from the list that had been approved by our IT department, and they shipped it directly to me. All said, it seems like a very good system, especially compared to some of the other services that have been outsourced.)
Android 2.2 is supposed to take Exchange integration a step further, letting corporate IT wipe the phone if it's reported as lost or stolen, as well as allowing corporate security policies to be enforced. So expect Android to compete even more heavily with Blackberry once 2.2 comes out.
Quite a bit more than 3%; size of the map area not served doesn't follow anywhere near that close the percentage of population served.
One that hath name thou can not otter
It's not just a phone. It is determining how portable device will be used by the mainstream. Locked down, or open?
To the mainstream, both devices are locked down. Android requires rooting for full openness, the iPhone requires jailbreaking.
Where you got confused is that the degree of open differs more significantly if you are a developer. But then you should not be confusing what is relevant to the mainstream, vs. the developer.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Although your post is pretty much both content free and apropos of nothing, I'm glad you posted it! I was sitting here wondering what your view on Apple products was. Elaborating on why you feel "jailed" using BSD on a Mac or what you meant by "mindlessness and intolerance" or even what about Apple's ethics you disagree with would have really dilluted your thesis, so good call on leaving that part out.
First of all these numbers directly contradict the numbers presented a few weeks ago that only 20% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Here it says that 71% of Android users would buy another Android phone. Still lower then Apple's 91%, but that can partly be ascribed to the fact that Apple has built a very strong brand loyalty over the last several years. Secondly, there is a direct negative correlation between the release of the Motorola Droid (which began the release of many droid phones like the Incredible) and the drop in recent acquirers of IOS4, going from 34% to 23% in the same period that droid went from 6% to 27%. Now this could be that people were holding out for the iphone 4, however the trend started nine months ago. It's doubtful most people were holding out nine months for the latest iphone. There were probably a few, but I don't think that explains these numbers. Third these numbers are going to be dramatically different in the third quarter simply because the hype of the release of the iphone 4. Because the new iphone is released rarely compared to a most other phones that event atmosphere lends itself to what I'm sure will be a spike in iphone sales. What will be most telling is what happens in Q4 as things balance out.
But the swarm of Android devices reminds me a little of the horde of Wintel PCs that swamped Apple's desktop offerings.
A little? The parallels are many. Apple has a platform that is considered the superior platform by many people. The problems with their platform are all based on how closed it is, either that they can't install what they want, or they can't use it how they want, or they have to use AT&T, etc. Other than the antenna issues, criticism for the iPhone isn't very technical, it's all usability issues related to the closed Apple system.
Contrast that with Android, which is designed to run on many different platforms with varying hardware. It might not be as shiny as the offering from Apple, but it's more flexible. This is exactly the scenario that allowed Microsoft to crush Apple with Windows, and if Apple isn't careful they're going to end up getting crushed again, this time by Google. Apple is just one company, they don't allow anyone else to sell their products. Anyone can license Android and build and sell a device that runs it. This is the same as the PC scenario, where it turned out to be Apple versus everyone else, where everyone else was selling the same competing product.
You'd think they would learn that more openness translates to more market penetration, but their mindset is so stuck on controlling the user experience that it seems like they're doomed to keep repeating history until consumers and businesses "evolve" to desire a more controlled experience. Even just licensing iOS to other vendors to allow them to create other devices powered by it would level the playing field, and I truly have no idea why they refuse to do that. It's all about control, and Apple refuses to relinquish any of it, even if they keep control all the way into the ground.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
It's an excellent way to compare them. The strength of platforms like iPhoneOS, Android, WindowsCE, etc. is that you can run the same apps across all of the devices. The more devices there are out in the population, the more enticing it is for developers to develop for them. The more developers there are developing for a platform, the more decent quality apps there are, and the more decent quality apps there are the more people will want to buy into the platform. It's a cycle that accelerates at an increasing rate as the install base increases. It's what has made the Apple app store so successful up to this point and will work the same way for Android.
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Are there any small Fortune-500 companies? What definition of "small" covers, "we have annual revenues in excess of $4 billion"?
It's a shame that AT&T held a gun to Jobs head to force Apple to sign an exclusive agreement with them.
And most important: multiple sources for applications.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I find it impressive that a relatively new platform is selling comparably to a platform that's been around for 4 years and has had a chance to "iron out the bugs".
Oh, and Apple's selling three different iPhone models, so it's not exactly a "single handset".
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's not just a phone. It is determining how portable device will be used by the mainstream. Locked down, or open? The ability to load your own music and ring tones, and app, or only loading what you are allowed ..at a price, of course.
Uh what android devices are as free as you claim? Last I heard you have to wait for someone to "jailbreak"/root the android device to be able to do what you want with it. This "android is open and free" is a load of bull. Motorola phones are all locked up so are HTCs. I also heard many Android devices, just like iPhone, has apps you can't even remove by the user. Yes, that doesnt sound very open to me.
Sounds like you've never seen an Android either. Rooting an Android device is just unlocking the firmware. Software is still open as is much of the layout. You can install any program you want for the Android regardless if it came from the Market Place or the internet (and I've done that before). While some of the core applications that came on the phone are uninstallable by default, most of them never run unless you open them so its not as much of an issue as you seem to make it out to be. I can also change ringtones and other sound effects to what I want. Something the iPhone won't let you do by default.
Attention... all grammer nazi"s! Is they're anything; wrong with: my post,
AT&T's commercials assert that it covers 97% of Americans, but if you live in or spend much time in one of the areas (more than 3% of the map) it doesn't cover, the iPhone loses by default even if Apple's marketing is successful.
97% population does not cover 97% land area, it probably is closer to 60% or less land area.
Nonsense. Windows Mobile = oodles of companies and it still fails.
This space for rent.
because Apple are limiting themselves too much with the One True Form-Factor. Some people want a keyboard, either palm-style or N900-style, some people want a bigger screen, some want a smaller device (though the iPhone 4 is getting small), and some a more rugged one. No matter how good the iPhone gets, most people I know just won't consider it because of the form factor issue. I for one want a larger screen (my HD2's is 44% bigger by area than the iPhone's, I'm strongly considering a Dell Streak, 99% larger), above all other considerations.
All the rest (features, locked-ness, looks) can be argued about. Form-factor is a very straightforward issue, and there's a reason why there are so many different ones on the market.
The Cloud - because you don't care if your apps and data are up in the air.
Wrong.
I have a Motorola droid. I plug a USB adapter into the phone and my computer, swipe the status bar down, and tell it to mount the SD card. I then get a removable drive on my PC. I opened my music directory, selected all my songs, right-clicked and selected copy. I then opened my SD card, created a directory called "music", and copied my MP3's there. Never once did I have any need to root my phone for that one so I can certainly load my own music and I do not need iTunes or some other application to get anything through, it is just a standard USB drive. Ring tones required an app from the Android market, I picked one called "Ringdroid" IIRC. I then can open any MP3 I have and one of the menu choices is "set as ringtone", if I press that choice it .... sets it as my ring tone. I still haven't rooted my phone at all. I can also check or uncheck a security feature that allows me to install unsigned applications, that still doesn't require root. So as far as I can see everything the person you are responding to says they can do one can regardless of what you may have heard.
Some manufacturers do have some applications you can't remove - Android is Open Source and people are allowed to extend it in ways they see fit and that includes that. However Android itself doesn't. Some manufacturers have also chosen to require rooting for other common functions too - again it is Open Source so they can modify to their hearts content. There are people who want a phone with no "dangerous" options and are fairly locked down (as many iPhone users say they want to be) and Android can accomodate that - indeed Motorola's answer to signing ROM's on the Droid-X is "If you want an extensible phone, purchase a different model" for that very reason. Android itself is open and it isn't hard to find currently sold models that are near as "free" (as in speech) as the nexus one is.
Maybe last you heard was from another Apple user that wishes Androids were not selling like they were? Or at the least you believed someone that was *very* misinformed and you should take what they say from now on with a large grain of skepticism as they were easily fooled.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
Its certainly relevant to anyone who cares about targeting a platform (such as, say, developers) to compare sales of one platform to another.
So compare the platform then, not the device. iOS runs on multiple different devices. Android does too. If a developer is targeting Apple's platform, they're targeting a version of iOS, and by all indications, developers are targeting iOS more than Android. The fact that there are about 5x more apps in the AppStore just backs up that claim.
they are instead smug about hopping on the walled-off Apple bandwagon where customizing a device you own is not allowed unless it's approved by the company that sold it to you.
Uh... Isn't Android largely just the same? To freely customize an average Android device you own, you have to root it using methods very unapproved by the operator that sold it to you? How is this different from iPhone?
AT&T was the only carrier that would let Apple retain a degree of control over the phone. Given the crap that, say, Verizon tends to load their phones up with, and their tendency to nickel and dime you to death with fees for everything, I can't say I'm sorry about how things worked out.
I understand that Nokia makes some excellent hardware, but with the explosion in popularity of Android and iOS, it seems we have two winning platforms here, and it's almost too late for anyone else to catch up. RIM had something good going, but they're losing out big time.
The market data disagrees with you. Even on current sales, Nokia are still number one, with RIM number two. In the US, Nokia have no presence (and they never have, so this wasn't them losing out to the Iphones or Android), but RIM are still number one.
"Ah, but Symbian and Blackberry are becoming less popular, with Android and Iphone catching up, right?" you'll cry.
No. Looking at percentages of market share is very misleading, as the smartphone market is increasing (or rather, the number of phones arbitrary defined as "smartphones" is increasing). From the article, you'd think that Symbian is falling. But actually, the number of sales is still increasing: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10839034
"Ah, so they're still increasing, but Android and Iphones are increasing faster, right?" you'll say.
For Android yes, but for Apple, no. Again this is a statistical quirk, due to looking at percentage change rather than actual sales, thus penalising the larger players. The BBC love to spin things in favour of Apple, but here's the actual increases from Q2 2009 to Q2 2010.
Android 9,605,050
Symbian 7,950,430
RIM 3,272,880
Apple 3,200,350
Others 607,210
Microsoft -348,320
Total 24,287,600
So, Android are still top, but Apple are actually fourth! So worldwide, I'd say it's all about Symbian and Android, with RIM perhaps holding out, and Apple stagnating in fourth place. In the US, it'll be between RIM and Android, with it being likely that Android will win out on top, but again with Apple lagging, this time at third place.
I've been on a blackberry for three years and recently switched to the Android platform. Nearly everyone I know is ditching their blackberries for iPhones or Android phones when their contracts are up
I'd prefer actual evidence over anecdotes. Aside from anecdotes being poor evidence, one factor is that there's something about Iphone users that makes them have to tell everyone "I've just got an Iphone!" And then everytime they use it, it's "I'm doing X on my Iphone". Android users do this to a lesser degree. Other people just use their phone. I once even had some strangers in the pub butt into our conversation about Android, to brag "Oh, we've got Iphones".
People love apps, and it looks like most developers are focused on these two platforms.
Actually it's often just a focus on Apple. Yes, it is indeed frustrating that companies, including public funded organisations (in the UK, the BBC and the Government) seem intent on focusing on what is the fourth most popular smartphone, and only covering about 3% of the phone owning market (there's an uproar when people only develop for Windows, but at least that has 90+% market share!), and when they do consider something else, it's most likely to be Android whilst the two most popular platforms are forgotten.
However, despite all the astroturfing for Apple by companies writing their apps, and in the media, this has yet to help them in terms of sales. Also, it's not clear that Apple do have a larger number of apps overall (most claims only look at central app store sales), plus, even if there are more than quantity, who cares about thousands of different fart apps? There's still plenty of apps for Symbian at least, and the only thing that I thought was cool that I can't get is the Google Sky Map, which isn't available on Apple either (plus it's not something that's really useful, unless you're actually an astronomer, which most people aren't).