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Nearly 9 Out of 10 Smartphones Shipped Run On Android (cnet.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNET: Google's Android operating system was the big winner in a big time for worldwide phone shipments, market researcher Strategy Analytics reported Wednesday. Android captured 88 percent of all smartphone shipped in the third quarter of 2016, a period that also marks the fastest growth rate in a year. "Android's gain came at the expense of every major rival platform," Strategy Analytics' Linda Sui said in a press release. "Apple iOS lost ground to Android and dipped to 12 percent [market]share," primarily because of "lackluster" sales in China and Africa, she said. And don't bother looking for BlackBerry and Microsoft Windows phones in the mix. They "all but disappeared" in the period between July 1 and the end of September. While Android's leading position looks "unassailable," it does face challenges in a market filled with phones made by hundreds manufacturers, few of which turn a profit. That's not helped by Google's new Pixel phone, which competes against the companies that made it popular in the first place, Strategy Analytics said. About 375 million smartphones shipped in the third quarter of 2016, up 6 percent from 354.2 million units in the same period last year. Shipments of Android-based phones rose 10.3 percent, while Apple's iPhones fell 5.2 percent.

32 of 220 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Unlikely by KlomDark · · Score: 2

    Trolling for a "funny" there?

  2. What's shipping? by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2

    For 'brand new' shipping today devices what versions of Android are going out?

  3. And nearly 10 of 10 android phones are on old ... by postmortem · · Score: 4, Informative
  4. Re:Unlikely by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People that think they matter use iPhones. Period.

    Fixed that for ya.

  5. Some Observations by youngone · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I have a work iPhone 6 and a personal Samsung Galaxy S4. The Samsung is 3 years old and works fine. If I was to sell it second hand I might get $50 for it. The iPhone would sell for at least $500 (local dollars, not US).

    The old Samsung does everything the iPhone does. I noticed the Apple marketing for the iPhone 7 recently, and the things the iPhone 7 camera can do I have been able to do on my Samsung for the last three years. (Not that I do, they're mostly gimmicks).

    All of my wife's friends were Apple users until the last 12 months or so, now my wife is the last iPhone user in her group of friends. That's hardly a scientific poll or anything, but white, relatively wealthy middle class women used to be the core iPhone buyer.

    Just my two cents worth really, make of it what you will.

    1. Re:Some Observations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Can you grill a cheese sandwich with an iPhone ?, you know you can with a Samsung and STILL have enough juice to iron your shirt.

    2. Re:Some Observations by youngone · · Score: 2

      I think that's largely correct. My wife uses an iPhone because it's easy, and she is also a computer illiterate.

    3. Re:Some Observations by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      Apple made the smart move when they jumped to selling privacy and unlike M$ not selling your privacy to others but selling your privacy to you. Apple are bound to push that harder and harder and one think likely to be banned at Apple, targeted advertisement because nothing screams absence of privacy, we own your life, like individually targeted advertisements. So basically Apple will hold it's own in the market, basically at around 10% and that is still millions of people, so plenty market there for Apple.

      M$ is just going down in a screaming heap and from mobile phones to the desktop, the market share is going down. So either Android or over priced Apple or the M$ Perves (nearly every one is avoiding them, I wonder how M$ employees feel being forced to carry around the probe, their employer controlled probe, well, thank fully I suppose it comes with a vibrate function to make them 'er' feel better).

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    4. Re:Some Observations by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      It's very risky, as people seem to like Apple's "courageous" choices less and less (myself included). In the old days, it was said that Apple did not design for a market or a target demographic or a focus group, they designed for Steve Jobs; a clever guy with good taste. Now that he's gone, Apple are struggling to keep up that important image. I can well imagine what goes through the heads of their design guys when Cook announces that they "need to make bold decisions for the next model iPhone." Something like "Oh dear god no they are going to kill the touch screen next!!!1!".

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  6. well no joke by whoozwah · · Score: 5, Informative

    1 out of the multitude smartphone manufacturers ships with iOS.

  7. Awesome... by r_naked · · Score: 3, Interesting

    So we ended up with the MS of the mobile world. Don't get me wrong, I use an Android phone, and I think things are OK right now, but if Google decided to become a super dick -- the battle starts all over again.

    I think my next phone will run Ubuntu.

    --
    -- http://anonet.org -- The internet the way it was meant to be. Check it out, you may be surprised.
    1. Re:Awesome... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

      I've not tried the latest Windows Phone version, but my partner has one that's running an older release and I'd agree with the parent. It's the first phone I've used with a UI that hasn't pissed me off. Unfortunately, it has some stability issues (sound stops working about once a month requiring a reboot, which makes using it as an alarm clock interesting) and Microsoft completely failed to get developers interested in the platform: they really needed to hand out a few thousand high-end Windows phones free to developers to bootstrap the ecosystem, but they didn't (not allowing native code also crippled it early on, as it made ports impossible and by the time they removed this restriction it was too late). It's a shame. Google and Apple need more competition.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  8. Re:Dumbphones replaced by smartphones by gmack · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't know why you put smartphone in quotes. My current smartphone cost me $150 USD for an octo core CPU and 3 GB ram/ dual SIMs etc. That's deep into the smartphone category and just as capable as a far more expensive phone.

  9. Re:The choice by TuballoyThunder · · Score: 5, Informative

    The answer is obviously yes as Apple has about 12% of the market and is number two behind Samsung. Apple takes about 70% of the profit.

    Apple has been losing share and profit, which I think is due to expansion in the lower price segment of the market and the improved quality of Android based phones. I would argue that the "open source, changeable, free (do you mean as in beer or as in speech)" are not factors that most people care about. I think the majority of the smartphone users care about price and usability.

  10. Re:The choice by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    iPhone: works great if it does what you need it to do out of the box, which it does for many people. If it doesn't, it sucks.
    Android: works great if you choose the right device, vendor (and even service provider), and spend some time tweaking it. If you don't, it sucks.

    The iPhone works well for me, if I can't see the walls around the garden I don't care about them, and I don't want to have to tweak my phone (install 3rd party tools or remove crapware) to make it work well. I hate my stock Android device (that I use for work) with a passion, but that's just me.

    One thing though: I start bumping into those Apple walls more and more often, and so do other ordinary people. For example: speech recognition, which is incredibly useful in certain applications like home automation, and something that people want. App developers have been able to hook into Google's speech stuff for donkeys years now, but on iOS Apple only recently announced the eagerly awaited 3rd party access to the Siri API... which turns out to be exceedingly clunky and limited to only 6 domains: ride booking, online payments, messaging, that sort of thing. No home automation, not yet and probably not ever because Apple have their own HA offering: HomeKit. Which is still very much in its infancy and not very good even in basic setups, because it doesn't play nice with other kit. More walls... That's something that Apple need to be careful about; if this happens once too often, people will switch.

    --
    If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  11. note 7 joke by Mishotaki · · Score: 4, Funny

    off course, you ship your note 7 to the customer and back.... twice in the same year, so every note was counted 4 times, it kinda helps...

  12. Meanwhile behind the Apple RDF... by Jason1729 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Over in the Apple forum they're saying iOS and Android are both doing well with a combined 99% market share.

  13. Selling at a loss by Guspaz · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Samsung was the only Android handheld manufacturer making any actual profit (not a loss or breaking even), and the billions upon billions of dollars of costs for the Note 7 issues have wiped out years worth of profit for the things. That means that at this point, Apple is the only company actually making any significant profit in the industry.

    So, is it really so bad to only have 12% of the market when you're the only ones making any money?

  14. Re:Unlikely by flopsquad · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Nearly 9 Out of 10 Smartphones Shipped Run On Android"

    And only 3 out of 10 of them experience unwanted explosions!

    See that's trolling for a funny.

    --
    Nothing posted to /. has ever been legal advice, including this.
  15. Re:Weird that iOS has so many exclusive apps by Swampash · · Score: 2

    Because when 90% percent of "the market" never purchases anything, it's not a market. It makes more sense to say

    "It's easy to understand why iOS has so many exclusive apps, it has nearly 100% market share".

  16. Re:Unlikely by dillee1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    You mean the other 7 are wanted?

  17. Re:The choice by bloodhawk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Let's see, I can choose between:

    iPhone: Proprietary, unchangeable, walled garden, one vendor, one device.

    Android: Open source, changeable, free, many vendors, many devices.

    Is this even a choice?

    I use a Samsung Galaxy S7. I don't think ANY of your options are reasons for the majority of consumers. They care about price, features and interacting with their friends with another smaller (but highly lucrative target group) caring about fashion and trend. The people that give a shit about the proprietry/open source/walled garden etc stuff is so insignificant that I don't think either side intentionally targets them.

  18. Re:The choice by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 2

    Of course it is. Since you neglected to mention the many Android deficiencies of which security is the worst.

    Android is just Windows redux. How does that feel?

    Considering that I've been using Windows for over twenty years, it feels pretty good thank you very much.

    Security isn't just about your device(s) and software being "perfect." We're humans, we don't do anything perfect. Security is about also being knowledgeable about whatever you're using and being aware of its vulnerabilities if any are known, and knowing how to properly mitigate that risk, and most important, recognizing when something is out of place.

    That's probably why I don't ever have security issues with Windows, nor Android. I frankly don't even understand how people can be so stupid as to install crap on their device(s) and get suckered into visiting malicious websites. I suppose I take my experience a little bit for granted.

  19. Re:The choice by arth1 · · Score: 2

    iPhone: works great if it does what you need it to do out of the box, which it does for many people. If it doesn't, it sucks.
    Android: works great if you choose the right device, vendor (and even service provider), and spend some time tweaking it. If you don't, it sucks.

    As a sysadmin, I know well that all operating systems suck. What differs is how much the suckiness can be reduced, and how much effort that will be.

    What I need a smartdevice for is likely atypical, but includes some musts like 5 GHz WiFi support, ssh applications with keyboard that allows easy access to things like ESC and TAB, e-mail that supports client certificates for SMTP, a web browser that doesn't report what URLs I browse, and a screen that's big enough physically that I can read console output without a loupe.

    For home use, an e-reader that supports hardware buttons for flipping pages for reading read one-handed, and gapless audio playback including FLAC support and sideloading audio.

    For me, Android is by far what I can make the least sucky with the least amount of grief.
    But it truly sucks. Just less than iOS and Windows Mobile (or whatever they call it these days).

  20. Re:The choice by Camembert · · Score: 2

    >> Is this even a choice?
    Well, yes. I am a happy iphone user. By and large they work well and reliably long so, and when eventually compelled to upgrade the phone was still good enough to give to a family member. I find them easier to use than Android, which may be a matter of habit. I don't particularly care about it being open source, and I have not found the walled garden a limit. The walls are far away for my usage, and the apps tend to do what is on the lid.
    What I especially like (cue to sn1ggering comments of offering my ass to Tim, etc etc) is how well it all works together with my macbook, ipad and apple tv: icloud syncing of photos and music everywhere, documents available immediately on my mac, iphone and ipad, even simply the notepad being synced everywhere is wonderful. yes, you can do all that with other approaches like dropbox etc, however I like how I don't even have to think about it at all.

  21. Re:Unlikely by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Nearly everyone I know owns an iPhone.

    That's because you probably work in the US, amid middle class or higher folks income-wise. Just in the US alone, iPhones account for 40% of smartphones. By the time you factor in your income and job, it's likely a much higher percentage.

    And it's not just poor people that buy Android phones, of course. I bought a rather expensive HTC One (m7) Android phone as my first smart phone, and still enjoy using it. At the time, I didn't own any Apple products, and saw no reason to jump into their ecosystem. On the other hand, I already had a gmail account for my personal mail. I figured if nothing else, an Android phone was guaranteed to work well with that. Plus, of course, I figured I'd have a bit more control over my phone with Android. Of course, that was before I realized Verizon sent me a phone with apps that I couldn't uninstall. Doh. Well, at least I can still load unauthorized apps if I want to.

    My next phone may be an iPhone simply to round out my personal development platforms. Alternatively, it may be a Pixel, expensive as it is, simply because I'm sick of carriers pushing their shit that I don't want on my phone (unwanted apps), and NOT pushing the shit I actually DO want (security updates). I haven't quite decided yet.

    --
    Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  22. Re:And nearly 10 of 10 android phones are on old . by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Informative

    If only it mattered, you would have a point.

    Seriously, my two year old OnePlus One is on Marshmallow, a version behind the latest Nougat, or two if you want to count the recent 7.1 update. It doesn't matter, I still get security updates, it still runs every app I throw at it. There are a few new features in Nougat but actually a lot of the important stuff is part of the Google Launcher so runs on my phone anyway.

    The phone is better than the day I bought it, secure and I'd rather it remains that way instead of getting updates that eventually cripple it or change functionality in annoying ways. If/when Nougat is available I'll evaluate it, but I'm not obsessed with being on the latest version and usually wait a month before installing updates for safety anyway.

    --
    const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
    SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  23. Re:Dumbphones replaced by smartphones by green1 · · Score: 2

    This is exactly it.

    ALL the high end phones are Android. Every single one.

    Of the mid-range phones, the iPhone7 is by far the most expensive, at about the same price as the high end Androids. but it has a fairly small market share.

    All the low end phones are Android. With the exception of the 2 windows phone users and the lone blackberry guy.

    End result is Android is dominating the high end market, the low end market, and the mid-range market.

  24. Re: Android is rapidly becoming the Windows of ol by mbeckman · · Score: 2
    You're misremembering. It's been proved to a certainty that Apple did not have third-party native apps on the iOS roadmap. Apple's own board reported lobbying for the capability but being repeatedly shut down by Jobs, who incorrectly thought web apps were all users would ever need.

    Cult of Mac is one of many industry pubs documenteing this history.

  25. Re:Unlikely by danomac · · Score: 2

    Where I work we are half and half. We've also had more people go from iOS->Android than the other way around.

    A former iOS user was astonished you could put in a memory card, plug the Android phone in to the computer, and just copy music to it.

  26. Re:Unlikely by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    What?? How does that work without an application??!? /sarcasm

    --
    Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
  27. Re:Unlikely by michael_wojcik · · Score: 2

    And it's not just poor people that buy Android phones, of course. I bought a rather expensive HTC One (m7) Android phone as my first smart phone, and still enjoy using it.

    And it's not just expensive phones that relatively wealthy people buy. I could buy a new top-of-the-line phone every month, if I wanted to; but I buy cheap Android phones and keep them for a few years, because I don't see any benefit in the more-expensive models.

    My immediate family members and most of my friends have iPhones, but I find the damn things utterly intolerable. I won't say Apple has never made anything I liked - the Apple //e was pretty nice - but I cannot brook their "don't you worry your pretty little head how it works" design philosophy.

    And Android offers me an assortment of devices with features I do want, like SD card slots, removable batteries, physical SIMs, physical keyboards, root access and a shell... Yes, there's not a single feature there that a majority of smartphone users want, as far as I can tell. But I do, and I'm not interested in buying a Veblen good from a company that thinks choice is bad for its customers.