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

[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.

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.

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: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.