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Android Passes iPhone In US Market Share
Adrian writes "61.5 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in November 2010, up 10 percent from the preceding three-month period. For the first time, more Americans are using phones running Google's Android operating system than Apple's iPhone, but RIM's BlackBerry is still in first place, according to comScore. RIM fell from 37.6 percent to 33.5 percent market share of smartphones, Google captured second place among smartphone platforms by moving from 19.6 percent to 26.0 percent of US smartphone subscribers, and Apple slipped to third despite its growth from 24.2 percent to 25.0 percent of the market. Microsoft, in fourth place, fell into single digits from 10.8 percent to 9.0 percent while Palm was still last and further slipped from 4.6 percent to 3.9 percent."
This is not unexpected, since Android sales have been outpacing iPhone sales for some time, but it happened significantly earlier than Gartner's prediction: Q4 2012.
It is telling to note, that both Android and iPhone are growing market share at the expense of Blackberry and others, rather than at the expense of each other.
The more competition the better, I say.
Its interesting to see Apple to have such great products, but get so hung up on the minutia of wanting to control the hardware so badly, that they fail to see the real gold was in getting the software on as many units as possible.
So Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, HTC, LG, Meizu, and more have created well over 20 handsets on four networks which all together sell more in America than two models of 1 handset from Apple only on AT&T. These guys should be patting themselves on the back for a job well done.
Even more impressive than you consider that (atleast earlier, maybe we're too far into the year now, but it doesn't matter much for the comparision) Android only had a 3.5% market share just a year ago (eventually more, as said, so what if it was 13-14 months ago? ..)
People draw very weird conclusions for that though. Earlier I guess the conclusion was that Android would never get a foot in, and that iPhone was small but much bigger than Android. Now iPhone is pretty big and Android have had amazing growth. So now the conclusion is that everyone want only iPhones or that Android will beat all other mobile OSes.
And when Playstation bet Nintendo and killed of Sega (Sega killed themselves .. :D) and the Gamecube sold even worse people wheren't slow to conclude that Nintendo was dying and would never come back on top. And who thought Xbox would get in? Seriously? Before the mod chips?
People seem to only be able to look at the current trend and extrapolate it into the future assuming everything will be the same and nothing will change in the future and current trends can survive forever. Well guess what? ...
Atleast it's nice to see that totally new concepts and player can actually become a major player on the market and that everything isn't stuck in same old. As it more or less is and has ever been on the PC market.
Only if you consider 3% market share "a lot". Indeed, the article quoted points out that Android is just slightly outside the margin of error to tie with Apple (rim at .3% higher market share is considered to be tied with either one due to margin of error). With respect to margin of errors both articles agree. However you may want to take a gander at the upper graph in the article linked, Android has 40.8% of new sales and iPhone at 26.9% - roughly a 14 point difference and that *is* major (indeed, at that different a rate the exact date in November of differences in sampling can certainly make enough difference for the discrepancy).
Not sure how that equates to the iPhone still in the lead by a lot, but oh well. Maybe all those people who were holding off purchasing an iPhone waiting on version 4 to come out are now going to rush out and save Apples Market share. Since we haven't seen that phenomenon happen yet (and a few months back it was *obvious* that was going to happen) it should within the next quarter. After all we were supposed to add those people in the last two quarters, might as well shift Apples market by them now too.
------- Sorry about the spelling, I suffer from two problems. Dyslexia makes it difficult to spell well, lazy makes it
When you have 100+ handsets sold by every carrier under the sun, of course you will sell more. Microsoft just dropped the ball and Google swooped in to take advantage of Apple's contract with AT&T. If it ended a couple years ago who knows if Android would even exist today. When it expires and Apple is allowed to sell the iPhone with whoever they want, Google is going to be hurting. The only complaint about the iPhone is you can only use it on AT&T. Compare that to all the criticisms of Android phones (bad user interface, slow upgrades, no upgrades, poor support, etc.)
The conversation is about the market penetration of cellular phone OS's, not about the market penetration of the physical phones themselves. Really, if apple wanted to brag a higher market penetration, they would provide users with more options, like devices made by other manufacturers, or more affordable phones.
With JUST AT&T as a carrier.
When Verizon gets the iPhone, I say that the market share proposition shifts big towards iPhone.
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
An operating system running on multiple phones surpassed the sales of a single phone? You don't say! When you properly compare operating systems, the iOS platform is ahead of Android in U.S. marketshare according to Nielsen, and this is right before the iPhone about to become available on Verizon later this month. If you want to compare single smartphones, the best-selling Android phone is the Droid 2, which was crushed by the iPhone in sales. The only way the Android comes out ahead in numbers is when people pull the bogus trick of comparing an entire operating system platform to a single phone.
This is another inaccurate Slashdot submission.
Apple probably wasn't willing to concede control of iOS to Verizon. Now that iOS is a hit, Apple has bargaining power to retain control of the platform.
Android, however, is very much under the control of the carriers.
It ain't hard to be number one when you have no competition. Let's see what you have to say about the situation come 2012.
Except that this IS comparing the iOS operating system with the Android system. Just because Apple is foolish enough to severely limit the number of models is NOT Google's problem. I love how every time an article comes out about Android's rapid growth, Apple fanboys come out of the woodwork trying to make excuses for why you can't compare Android market share to iOS market share.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
The iPhone is a physical device. Android is an OS. How does the iPhone compare to a single company's phones that run Android?
If your Ford car could only use Ford gas and only drive on Ford roads, or if your Sony TV could only tune to Sony channels, then you might have a point.
-Lod
I thought Computerworld was the one that successfully trolled Slashdot anti-MS zealots by faking Vista and Windows 7 benchmarks? http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/why-we-dont-trust-devil-mountain-software-and-neither-should-you/31024
Vista was okay if there was no OEM crap and on speedy hardware with loads of RAM and your hardware and software was supported. That's why it worked for some. Coloring all of them as sockpuppets is juvenile.
And do you have a citation for the Kin's 30k facebook friends and under 1k friends? Thought there were only 9000 earlier.
http://www.intomobile.com/2010/07/08/microsoft-kin-facebook-app-shows-over-8800-active-kin-phones-debunk/
WP7 has polish and is ultra smooth and the metro UI is really innovative and good. If it was made by Apple, people would be singing praises of it over here ad nauseum. Cut and paste is coming in an update this month and has already been demoed at CES. And there are LOTS of non-geeks who don't care about multitasking. It's a good 1.0 product but MS is not pushing updates fast enough.
MS has the financial muscle to see it through. Remember Windows 1.0, the original XBOX, Word, Excel etc.?
This space for rent.