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."

Comments

Already #1 in the US market

[SilentSage]

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.

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[unix1]

Notes:

- numbers are for new devices only (not total market share)
- does not include iPhone 4 - not a lot of people would buy an iPhone 3 in Q2 when new model was expected shortly

More interesting will be Q2 and Q3 totals combined when Q3 numbers are available. Then put BB6 and WP7 in the mix by year's end and it will get really interesting.

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[Dixie_Flatline]

IN THE QUARTER. In the quarter. It's the biggest platform IN THE QUARTER.

Rather than admonishing other people to read your links, please read the story that you're talking about. They haven't caught up to anyone yet, they're just selling faster.

Ignore the 851% figure because it's meaningless. If I sell 1 phone in my first quarter and TEN phones in my second quarter, that's a growth of 1000% per quarter! All it tells us is that Android didn't have much market penetration before and it's up now.

In the end, this isn't news. There are MANY manufacturers using Android as a platform and only Apple using iOS as a platform. Apple is tied to the most hated major network in America, and Android isn't. The actual question is 'what took them so dang long?'

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[Fnkmaster]

Eh? Android does support ActiveSync. It just that prior to 2.2, it didn't enforce all the corporate security policies of ActiveSync. See Feature Enhancement Request 4475 and see this article for a summary of related changes in 2.2.

2.2 seems to address most of the password/security policy issues with ActiveSync. I have 2.2 running on my Nexus One, but don't use Exchange server, so can't comment here.

For Droid owners, the update to 2.2 is supposed to come out officially this week, though I'm pretty sure there are unofficial 2.2 ROMs out there already. So basically, what you are talking about is no longer an issue, or at least not a particularly significant one.

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[bonch]

I'm sure people in the comments will conveniently ignore those facts, especially the one about not including iPhone 4 sales. Many analysts say the iPhone 4 leak hampered 3GS sales because customers were waiting for the new model. Also, it's bizarre to be comparing an OS to one device. It's more accurate to compare Android to iOS, which would then include the iPad.

iPhone 4 + iPad = more than Android, sorry.

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[sznupi]

...but then ignoring non-phone Android devices is fine?

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[mlts]

Actually, none of the big names ship their best phones to the US, sadly enough, except for Apple. One can just look at the phones offered in markets like South Korea or Japan to see what should be here in the US. Those places, there is actual broadcast TV that people can easily watch (without being dependent on the data bandwidth.)

Until Apple came out with the iPhone and woke people up in the US, when I showed them what a smartphone was able to do, the response was mainly, "who cares about Bluetooth or E-mail. I just want a phone that is thin and makes calls. Any more and that is what a laptop is for." Ironic how things change. It wasn't that long ago when everyone was lusting after RAZR models and people with smartphones were either geeks or corporate execs.

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[DJRumpy]

That was exactly my point and Windows vs. Mac is a good example. This is about as relevant as saying that Windows sells more OS in a quater than Mac. It's just kind of a 'duh' statement. Although Apple is extremely popular in the smartphone segment, they are only a single company. They can't hope to compete with every other smartphone vendor releasing an Android phone.

This would be significant if it was a 'Droid X outsells iPhone' headline. Instead, they are grouping a slew of hardware models together into one big group who happen to all use the same base OS, and then comparing them to a handset that only comes on a single piece of hardware from a single vendor.

Re:Already #1 in the US market

[vipw]

The point of market share reports isn't like a sporting even where you cheer for your favorite team (fanboyism), but to help people understand the big picture of what is happening in the market.

For example: I need to migrate an enterprise application to a handheld computer platform, and this report makes me think I should start hiring engineers with knowledge of android instead of iOS or Windows Mobile developers.

After almost 20 years

[OrangeTide]

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.

Re:After almost 20 years

[Microlith]

Yeah, how dare we prefer an OS on our mobile devices that shares technologies and toolkits with our desktop instead of a unique, incompatible Java implementation from a single source.

Higher demand after iPhone 4 release in Q3

[Xemu]

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.

If this trend continues...

[BorkBorkBork6000]

If this trend continues, Android will have 100% of the market in just over 8 years!

I love linear extrapolation.

Re:Bring tha hate, bring tha noise!

[SerpentMage]

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.

Re:Yawn...

[ADRA]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:IPhone_sales_per_quarter_simple.svg

Yep, the market really cooled off in Q1/Q2 in bated anticipation...

Re:Bring tha hate, bring tha noise!

[GameMaster]

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.

Re:What are you smoking?

[bm_luethke]

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.