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99.6 Percent of New Smartphones Run Android or iOS (theverge.com)

The latest smartphone figures from Gartner show how much iOS and Android are dominating the smartphone market. According to the report, Android and iOS accounted for 99.6 percent of all smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2016. For comparison, this figure was 96.8 percent in the second quarter of 2015. The Verge reports: Of the 432 million smartphones sold in the last quarter, 352 million ran Android (81.7 percent) and 77 million ran iOS (17.9 percent), but what happened to the other players? Well, in the same quarter, Windows Phone managed to round up 0.3 percent of the market, while BlackBerry was reduced to a rounding error. The once-great firm sold just over 200,000 units, amounting to 0.0 percent market share. It's worth noting that although, in retrospect, this state of affairs seems inescapable, for years analysts were predicting otherwise. Three years ago, Gartner said that Microsoft's mobile OS would overtake iOS for market share in 2017, while BlackBerry would still be hanging around as sizable (if small) player.

91 comments

  1. Gartner "analysts" by wendyo · · Score: 2

    Proves the worth of analysts. Gartner is just a Microsoft shill.

    1. Re:Gartner "analysts" by jeremyp · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's only February, there is still time for Microsoft to overtake iOS in 2017.

      And now: unicorns!

      --
      All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
    2. Re:Gartner "analysts" by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

      The true value of Gartner is in giving clueless managers someone to blame for their bad decissions.
      Which is why these managers are willing to pay so much for their service.

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    3. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Luthair · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Basically the way Gartner works is they get paid to talk someone up. Think of them as an external PR department that has a tiny shred of credibility.

    4. Re:Gartner "analysts" by rtb61 · · Score: 1

      To be fair, Gartner most probably had no idea at all about Windows anal probe 10 and M$ shooting itself in the foot and then sticking the bloody stump in it's mouth. You can not be 'cool' and sell into the consumer market with a accessory personal device whilst being seen as control freak perves wanting to control and pry into everyone's personal life. Windows watching you masturbate is not exactly the best way to sell a device that people will carry around with them. So basically smart phone forecast prior to windows 10 vs smart phone outcome post windows 10. Only a wildly arrogant company would do what M$ has done and Gartner could not have reasonably expected M$'s fuck crazy scheme. Compulsory software installs, desktop advertising, encrypted user monitoring, hacking into microphones and cameras, really sick stuff. M$ is pretty much killing itself in the consumer market and is rapidly reaching the point of no return and perhaps even crossed over.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    5. Re:Gartner "analysts" by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      To be fair, they weren't the only ones predicting this. I've seen Windows in action on phones and it looked pretty good. Coupled with cross-platform technology like Xamarin that lets you produce a Windows version of your app almost for free, I too believed that Windows would gain market share in the mobile market. It was too little too late though, Xamarin wasn't mature at the time and is still not widely used, and by the time some major apps started appearing on Windows, they had already become largely irrelevant.

      --
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    6. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Tom · · Score: 1, Interesting

      As much as I'd love for you to be right - MS has behaved like this for 20 years and they're still the dominant desktop OS.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    7. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Trailer+Trash · · Score: 1

      As much as I'd love for you to be right - MS has behaved like this for 20 years and they're still the dominant desktop OS.

      They're the dominant desktop OS simply because of inertia and the large volume of software available. And that's the same reason Windows phones will never be able to break into the two-horse race between iOS and Android. There's no real software available for a Windows phone compared to the other platforms, and nobody in their right mind is going to develop for a platform that accounts for 3/1000ths of the phones out there. Worse yet, when someone has a market share that low you have to wonder who the schmucks are that got suckered into one and are they even interested in buying more software for it?

    8. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gartner is just a Microsoft shill.

      As an IT employee who occasionally gets product opinions from Gartner, I'm saying you didn't hit far from the mark.

    9. Re:Gartner "analysts" by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      It's almost like Gartner and it's "Magic Quadrant" horseshit are up for the highest bidder.

      Oh wait, they always have been.

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    10. Re:Gartner "analysts" by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Gartner was probably not the only company taking money for "market analysis" from Microsoft.

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    11. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Talderas · · Score: 1

      MS had the potential to increase their market share but I think their discarding of many of the positive aspects of WP8.x and failure to embrace Xamarin that primarily contributed to their loss of market share. When I get a new smart phone I'll be migrating from WP8 to Android. WP10 simply doesn't interest me.

      --
      "Lack of speed can be overcome. In the worst case by patience." --Znork
    12. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Kjella · · Score: 2

      M$ is pretty much killing itself in the consumer market and is rapidly reaching the point of no return and perhaps even crossed over.

      Windows (all versions): 85% and stable
      OS X: 11%
      Linux: 1.5%
      Misc (possibly mis-ID as desktop): 2.5%

      One third of the 85% above is now using Win10. Half the gamers on Steam now run Win10. With Ryzen and Kaby Lake there is no Win7 support. Sorry to disappoint you, but even as people are holding on to Win7 there zero evidence of any migration away. When push comes to shove I imagine most will begrudgingly upgrade like they did with WinXP.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    13. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Mr_Silver · · Score: 2

      Proves the worth of analysts. Gartner is just a Microsoft shill.

      I'm assuming you're talking about Gartner's prediction that Windows Phone would overtake iPhone in 2015?

      Whilst analysts have a tendency to get very little right, in fairness to Gartner, they probably weren't expecting Microsoft to reboot the platform twice and, in both times, leave all their previous users high and dry on the old OS.

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    14. Re:Gartner "analysts" by donaldm · · Score: 2

      M$ is pretty much killing itself in the consumer market and is rapidly reaching the point of no return and perhaps even crossed over.

      Windows (all versions): 85% and stable
      OS X: 11%
      Linux: 1.5%
      Misc (possibly mis-ID as desktop): 2.5%

      Not sure where you got those figures. Linux Desktop Market share is now at 2.27%. Not huge but definitely increasing.

      One third of the 85% above is now using Win10. Half the gamers on Steam now run Win10. With Ryzen and Kaby Lake there is no Win7 support. Sorry to disappoint you, but even as people are holding on to Win7 there zero evidence of any migration away. When push comes to shove I imagine most will begrudgingly upgrade like they did with WinXP.

      Again I will refer you to the URL. Windows 10 is approx 25.3% with Windows 7 approximately 47.2% and surprisingly Windows XP at 9.17%. Even Windows 8.1 is at 6.9% so that tells you how popular Windows 10 is, although as people throw away their old windows machines and purchase new ones then Windows 10 market share will increase.

      In the motherboard BIOS there is an option for "Other OS" and I initially installed Fedora 24 (now 25) on the Z170 (takes Sky Lake) without any problems so I don't forsee any issues with the motherboards for Ryzen (when it comes out) or Kaby Lake which has the same LGA 1151 socket as Sky lake and will run on Z170, H170, B150 and H110 series motherboards . It will be possible to install Windows 7 (if you can get a legitimate version or do you pirate it?) under the Other OS feature but like you have said it will not be supported by Microsoft.

      As far as PC games go, Microsoft Windows dominates although if you go to Steam and look at the number of games available for Linux and SteamOS there are over 5,000 and some are AAA. Good luck finding the time to play them all.

      The majority of people will not upgrade to Windows 10 unless Microsoft use the same tactics when they made the OS a free upgrade if you had a legitimate copy of Windows 7 or Widows 8.1. If you wish to upgrade now you have to pay for Windows 10 and most people will not do that unless they replace their PC which in the majority of cases the new PC will come with Windows 10 as the default OS.

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    15. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Kjella · · Score: 1

      http://gs.statcounter.com/os-m...
      http://gs.statcounter.com/os-v...
      http://store.steampowered.com/...

      As far as PC games go, Microsoft Windows dominates although if you go to Steam and look at the number of games available for Linux and SteamOS there are over 5,000 and some are AAA. Good luck finding the time to play them all.

      And yet the trend is backwards towards less Linux users... Linux used to have something like 1% when SteamOS was being hyped, today it's at 0.8%. You keep talking it up, I'm telling you users aren't buying it.

      In the motherboard BIOS there is an option for "Other OS" and I initially installed Fedora 24 (now 25) on the Z170 (takes Sky Lake) without any problems so I don't forsee any issues with the motherboards for Ryzen (when it comes out) or Kaby Lake which has the same LGA 1151 socket as Sky lake and will run on Z170, H170, B150 and H110 series motherboards

      Well except that AMD has explicitly said there won't be any chipset drivers for Ryzen on Win7. That Kaby Lake is supported is more of an accident because it's so similar to Skylake and even Skylake support was only after a business uproar against Microsoft.

      The majority of people will not upgrade to Windows 10 unless Microsoft use the same tactics when they made the OS a free upgrade if you had a legitimate copy of Windows 7 or Widows 8.1. If you wish to upgrade now you have to pay for Windows 10 and most people will not do that unless they replace their PC which in the majority of cases the new PC will come with Windows 10 as the default OS.

      In other words they will move to Windows 10 one way or the other. Who cares if they don't upgrade? It means they still use Windows software and when their Windows box finally dies they'll get a new one. That's what I said, the total number of Windows users is flat. A WinXP/Vista/7/8 user disappears, a Win10 user appears and hardly any new Mac/Linux users.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
    16. Re:Gartner "analysts" by iampiti · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I'm one of those that I'll upgrade bedrugingly when I have no other choice.
      Right now the only thing tying me to Windows is games. When there're a few games that I want to play that don't work on 7 or my new hardware doesn't I'll have to upgrade.
      Microsoft are not (that) stupid. They do this crap because they know they have people by the balls. Look at what happens whey they have competition: When the PS4 and XBone were shown Microsoft said theirs was to require online connectivity to play at all times and other anti-consumer things. When Sony mocked them saying theirs wouldn't require that and gamers said en masse they were only gonna buy the PS4 Ms retracted in an instant.
      TL;DR They only do this because they can. If they had competition they'd have to be pro consumer

    17. Re:Gartner "analysts" by demonlapin · · Score: 1

      But how much of the stuff you run on your smartphone is anything that isn't, at root, either a glorified web browser or a basic function (like texting, calling, or camera)? The only piece of software I regularly run on mine that isn't in that category is a calculator app.

    18. Re:Gartner "analysts" by akozakie · · Score: 1

      I used a Lumia for well over a year, then switched to Android because of a required app. Yeah, I could keep both, but carry both every day? No, thanks. Honestly? I still miss the Lumia. For me it was much, much better in everyday use, the new one seems like a halfhearted attempt at making a mobile OS. Note: this should be surprising - the new phone is upper-mid range, the Lumia was low-end, plus I absolutely hate Windows 8/10 on desktop. Guess what, on a phone it's actually great, at least for some users, including me. It might depend on your preferences, if you're mostly using different apps, the phone's interface may not matter. I use apps when I need them, 90% of the time I use only the phone, texting, scheduling and notes (yes, even Symbian did that well enough).

      You're right, it's the apps. They started too late, they had no chance without a full compatibility layer for one of the Big Two early in the race. Noone is seriously going to support an additional version of an app if it gets just 5% of the market, the income doesn't really cover the cost. So to become a third significant player you need to... already be it. Now it's too late - once you're percieved as irrelevant, nothing really helps.

      Too bad. Android could learn from Windows how to make a practical smartphone interface.

    19. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's only February, there is still time for Microsoft to overtake iOS in 2017.

      And now: unicorns!

      Unicorns? That's Apple's gig. Hey Tim, the four "Liliths" are doing one hell of a job destroying Unicorn Headquarters. Businesses are closing down, one after another. Keep up the good work!

    20. Re:Gartner "analysts" by Tom · · Score: 1

      games

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    21. Re: Gartner "analysts" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah no one cares about that stuff or your paranoia

    22. Re:Gartner "analysts" by demonlapin · · Score: 1

      Yeah, I don't run any of those. My phone is a critical part of my job. Battery life is #1. I'll do a little music stuff, but the screen stays off unless I need it on.

  2. Surprise by allo · · Score: 1

    Blackberry OS is mostly dead, tizen and so on never really started and other custom OS run on phones which are not called smartphones.

    1. Re:Surprise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is this company called Microsoft....

    2. Re:Surprise by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      ... who has been failing at smart phones for 15 years. First, to Palm. Then to Blackberry. Now to Apple and Google.

      Their products have been horrid for as long as some of their customers have been alive, and they aren't getting better enough to cause people to want to switch from their known ecosystem.

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    3. Re:Surprise by sconeu · · Score: 1

      In other news today...

      • * Water is wet
      • * The sky is blue (when it's not raining in So Cal)
      • * The Sun is hot
      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  3. Re:0.4 of a phone by mjwx · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What makes me feel like this is just some bullshit marketng post is, how do you sell 0.4 of a phone, or 0.9 of a phone... All of those "units sold" should be whole numbers.

    Erm... they're talking in percentages. When you're talking in the terms of 446 million units, a tenth of a percent is 460,000 units... Which is still significant.

    They aren't selling 0.3 of a phone, they are taking 0.3% of the market which means they're selling 1.3 million phones.
    What this report emphasises (without trying to say it) is that the windows phone market has been in decline for years. In 2015 I believe they had 2% and at their peak, 4%. What the report also doesn't say (because when they haven't got their tongue up Microsoft's arse, Gartner are vigorously trying to shove it up Apple's arse) is that the smartphone market is really the Android market.

    --
    Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  4. So MS pays Gartner more than Apple by Tangential · · Score: 1

    Its pretty clear from Gartner's predictions 3 years ago which company was paying them the most money among M$, Apple and others.

    Gartner's predictions eerily parallel the amount of money vendors pay them yet it never seems to matter to them or their customers that they are so consistently wrong.

    --
    Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
  5. Quiet sad. by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 1

    That means a bunch of old people got duped into buying a cell with Windows Phone. Microsoft should be ashamed of themselves! ;)

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Quiet sad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What's sad is that you don't even know the difference between quiet and quite.

  6. Re:0.4 of a phone by mugurel · · Score: 1
    From the table caption of TFA:

    Worldwide smartphone sales in the fourth quarter of 2016. (Thousands of units.)

    (emphasis mine)

  7. Re:0.4 of a phone by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Gartner are vigorously trying to shove it up Apple's arse) is that the smartphone market is really the Android market.

    That's not really true. From the report, the iOS market is around 22% of the size of the Android market. That's a much higher ratio than the size of the Mac market to the Windows market has ever been. Even that doesn't tell the whole story, because a large part of the Android market is very low-end phones, with razor-thin margins for the manufacturer and very few app sales. This is important to the sort of people reading this kind of report, because they care about what the return on investment will be from supporting a given platform. It doesn't matter that Android completely dominates in the poorer parts of Africa, India, and China to the extent that iOS is a rounding error, it matters what phones the people with money to spend on your product have.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  8. linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And yet none of them run Linux, despite toasters running linux in the 90's. Yes, 'dominating' is the correct term. In a free market, none of those shit 'OS' would be used very much. Spyruses is more like it.

    1. Re:linux by Big+Hairy+Ian · · Score: 1

      Actually Android runs on a Linux Kernel so you could say most of them are running Linux

      --

      Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.

    2. Re:linux by r0kk3rz · · Score: 2

      My phone running GNU\Linux is obviously a mythical beast then...

    3. Re:linux by tepples · · Score: 1

      Which make and model of phone runs GNU/Linux? If it's the one I think you're talking about (Nokia N900), it's probably "a mythical beast" in Slashdot's home country. Can it even connect to modern networks now that AT&T is phasing out GSM service in favor of expanding LTE?

    4. Re:linux by r0kk3rz · · Score: 1

      Which make and model of phone runs GNU/Linux? If it's the one I think you're talking about (Nokia N900), it's probably "a mythical beast" in Slashdot's home country. Can it even connect to modern networks now that AT&T is phasing out GSM service in favor of expanding LTE?

      It's a Jolla C running Sailfish OS manufactured last year by Intex (India), its modem is designed for Europe so I guess it won't be that happy in the US of A.

    5. Re:linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, Google deliberately did that specifically so people like you would retort exactly like you did whenever it is brought up. Call it propaganda, call it marketing, call 'Fake News'... regardless, it's not the same thing as Linux, not even close. That's not the part that matters. The spyware 'OS', the GUI, which they are calling an OS, is what matters.

    6. Re:linux by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 0

      Every Android phone "runs" Linux

      --
      Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
    7. Re:linux by tepples · · Score: 1

      Everyone who feels an urge to be "the best kind of correct" about Android's use of Linux as its kernel makes me appreciate how Stallman got it right about using the term "GNU/Linux" to distinguish it from the completely different Android userland.

    8. Re:linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes and every mac runs FreeBSD. I don't know what all those libtards arecomplaining about.

    9. Re: linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You clearly have no idea what Linux is ... ROTFLMAO

  9. Re: 0.4 of a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah, right.
    More 'smartphones' sold may run some flavour of Android but Apple is still the only manufacturer that actually matters.

  10. Gartner, enough said by Tom · · Score: 1

    Nobody except Gartner believes most of what they predict anyway. Did anyone really think that Microsofts n-th attempt to make a phone OS would be any more successful than the previous ones?

    I'm surprised that Blackberry fell so deep, because it still has a strong foothold in the finance and some other highly security-conscious industries (military, etc.) and some of its security features are still unique.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re:Gartner, enough said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      some of its NSA backdoors are still unique

      T, FTFY.

    2. Re:Gartner, enough said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure the security and control is nice.. But any system is useless if your users don't want to use it.

      Many often forget the goal of any system is to provide a useful service to end users. The customers are king and they determine what will be used. BB's security was mostly theater anyway.

      RIM/BB obviously suffered major systemic internal problems anyway. They were completely unable to re-tool their internal messaging stack. BES and their messaging network quickly became a liability instead of a work class feature. Phones got powerful. Data connections got fast and cheap. BB took years to get a usable touch interface out the door.

      Man, if you want to find an amazing example complete design failure go find the original blackberry storm. Try to use it and you'll realize what geniuses apple were at the birth of the smartphone era.

    3. Re:Gartner, enough said by dbIII · · Score: 1

      Blackberry decided they could get away with cutting back on R&D when things were lean and bring it back later. There was no later. A product that has mostly been unchanged for years appears to be very unattractive in the smartphone sector.

    4. Re:Gartner, enough said by dj245 · · Score: 1

      Nobody except Gartner believes most of what they predict anyway. Did anyone really think that Microsofts n-th attempt to make a phone OS would be any more successful than the previous ones?

      One has to admit the possibility is there. Smartphones have already displaced standalone GPS devices and the majority of consumer cameras. Current smartphones are powerful enough to be most people's computer, TV media frontend, etc. Most personal computers still run Windows. If Microsoft could displace TV set top boxes and computers using a phone-sized device, they could potentially be very successful. Granted, that's a big "if", but it could be done if they got their product development and marketing wagons circled correctly.

      --
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    5. Re:Gartner, enough said by Tom · · Score: 1

      One has to admit the possibility is there.

      Mathematically, yes. Realistically, you would have to be a complete idiot to bet money on it.

      The one area that MS consistently fails in, for all its existence, is usability. Everything they make has always been just barely usable. Their interface design is inconsistent, constantly changing and at best tolerable. But for a small screen on a phone, the interface is the king. It is the one thing you have to get right.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  11. and the sun is hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    SO let me get this correct Garner spent money to tell to find out that android and IOS are the two most popular mobile OS's.. DUH....

    1. Re:and the sun is hot by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      replace "spent" with "earned". Or replace Garner with whoever commissioned the study.

  12. well, at least we still have Metro to show for it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just think what we would do without it.

  13. I lost $50 on my Winphone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    \>tfw I piad $40 for a 128gb micro sd card and plugged it into my phone

  14. But Crackberry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If a major provider offered Blackberry as the *free* phone, touted it's business friendly application and purported it was a safer alternative, used less power, non-exploding batteries, still has a headphone jack, uses a normal charging cord, it's TSA approved, etc. (I know, not all that is true), then the Blackberry would have a significant increase in the market.
    IOW, when something is offered as free or included at very low price, it'll have a significant market share.
    It's the old Gillette marketing ploy.

    1. Re:But Crackberry by Octorian · · Score: 1

      Back in the days of the BlackBerry Curve, they basically did something close enough to that. Unfortunately, once BlackBerry 10 came around, they totally forgot the importance of having a cheap-low-end even if its not profitable. You basically need those junk devices to build your platform's userbase to the level that people care about it enough to support your better devices.

      Microsoft understood this back when they were more seriously pushing the various Windows Phone incarnations. Unfortunately, they failed to provide a compelling platform for anyone who wanted something more than "the cheap thing the phone store was offering for scraps." This kept things going for a while, and did result in a larger (if still unimpressive) userbase than BlackBerry 10 managed, but wasn't enough long-term.

  15. Well damn by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess I'm some sort of a very rare hipster for buying a Lumia 950

  16. Re:0.4 of a phone by burtosis · · Score: 1

    What makes me feel like this is just some bullshit marketng post is, how do you sell 0.4 of a phone, or 0.9 of a phone... All of those "units sold" should be whole numbers.

    Fuckin' percentages, how do they work?

  17. Blackberry devices now run Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I thought that was well known by now.

  18. While we're discussing this subject by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Could someone recommend to me a good dumbphone with calendar and scheduling applications that has as long a battery life as possible?

    My Android phone is always out of battery whenever I try it, and I'm not using any of its features anyway, and it's also insecure. So I'm really looking for some alternative with better battery life.

    1. Re:While we're discussing this subject by Calydor · · Score: 1

      The relaunch of the Nokia 3310 later this year may be interesting for a dumbphone.

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  19. Re:0.4 of a phone by lintu · · Score: 1

    In this blog include about the smart phones based informations.this details are very useful for all peoples.i got a clear informations about the smartphones.thanku so much for sharing this details.yoga courses in dubai

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  20. Re: 0.4 of a phone by Calydor · · Score: 1

    So how did the Kool-Aid taste?

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  21. Re:0.4 of a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    US market share: IOS 43.6%; Android 52.8%

    France, Germany, Italy, Spain and United Kingdom: IOS 18.3%; Android 77%

  22. Sailfish someone? by Herve5 · · Score: 1

    The best way to be within the 0.1% ;-)
    On top of a Fairphone hardware for instance...

    --
    Herve S.
    1. Re:Sailfish someone? by fph+il+quozientatore · · Score: 1

      Sailfish here! Torilla tavataan! I'm just hoping it survives financially and doesn't get any Russian backdoor in the near future...

      --
      My first program:

      Hell Segmentation fault

  23. Smartphone life expectancy? by damn_registrars · · Score: 2

    If 432 million smart phones are sold per quarter that is 1.6 billion per year. One group predicts around 4.77 billion cell phone users by the end of 2017, though that includes both smart phones and less sophisticated phones. If we said that half of those phones are smart that means the number of smart phones is somewhere around 2.4 billion. We already know we are closing in on saturation as the remainder of the world's ~6.8 billion people are not necessarily potential customers for cell service.

    So if 1.6 billion of the 2.4 billion smart phones in use today were purchased in the past year, does that suggest that on average over half the world's smart phones last under a year?

    --
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    1. Re:Smartphone life expectancy? by drew_kime · · Score: 2

      So if 1.6 billion of the 2.4 billion smart phones in use today were purchased in the past year, does that suggest that on average over half the world's smart phones last under a year?

      Yes.

      --
      Nope, no sig
    2. Re:Smartphone life expectancy? by iampiti · · Score: 2

      The vast majority of them got replaced because the new version got released.
      Me I keep my phones as long as they work. The last one worked for 3'5 years until the Wifi started working intermittently

  24. Re:0.4 of a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You could argue that the fact that there are few apps on existing android devices would be an opportunity to come up with applications that are actually meaningful to those poor data-less savages. But sure let's just assume that segment of the market is useless instead, I'm sure that perspective will lead to more growth.

  25. Re: 0.4 of a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Said no one who knows anything about technology.

  26. Whether you use Android or iOS by Dixie_Flatline · · Score: 1

    ...I hope that we can come together and agree that it's sad and hilarious that companies like Gartner exist and consistently make such completely asinine predictions about anything at all.

    Every year some analyst predicts something absolutely stupid that all of us know is impossible. I hope whoever made this call knows that they are bad and they should feel bad.

  27. Re:0.4 of a phone by ckatko · · Score: 1

    A better graph tells a thousand words:

    http://cdn.bgr.com/2013/03/com...

  28. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most people use the telephone or the internet for long-distance communication . . .

  29. Re:0.4 of a phone by RandyHill · · Score: 1

    Android sells more units but Apple makes almost all of the profits in the smartphone space. In Android presumably Google makes a good profits off ad delivery, and Samsung makes decent profits (used to be higher but never even a fraction of Apples), and the rest of the handset makers break even or lose money.

    As a developer I stay on iOS because the revenues are so much higher for iOS apps, still about double the Google play store last I checked. The implication is that most android phones are used as "feature phones", their owners don't buy apps or spend money. Apple's refusal to go downmarket and make $100 or $200 phones hasn't hurt them, even though Android has always out-volumed them over the last 5 years. I'm not sure that will change in the future.

    The difference between iOS/Android and Macintosh/Windows back when they launched is that Windows could run most all your existing software, while today iOS has the best apps. Adopting Macintosh in the 80s meant replacing your PCs and adopting new applications, adopting Windows meant running Lotus 123 in dos mode while slowly adopting new applications and slowly replacing PCs. Today apps probably mean a lot less, and where it does iOS has the best apps, partly due to market size and also because of ease of development (massive rapid penetration of current OS versions, a small set of screen sizes, etc).

  30. Boo Hoo by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hillary lost. Still crying over it.

  31. Re:Satya Nutella is a cunt. by yuvcifjt · · Score: 1

    Not sure why this was down-modded, as the parent is completely right!
    Perhaps the subject is distasteful, otherwise the content is spot-on.

    he tried to be a second rate Google on connectivity

    Perhaps you meant, second rate Google on abusing people's privacy and sucking as much of their data as they can get their hand on, and selling it to the highest bidder, like insurance agencies and the gov? ... But then again, Microsoft has always been "second rate" when it comes to copying others, first IBM, and Lotus, then Apple for a very long time, never quite measuring up to the UI of MacOS and OSX.

  32. The news is to the right of the decimal point... by mschaffer · · Score: 1

    The news is to the right of the decimal point. We all knew it was 99 point something.

  33. Re:0.4 of a phone by OpenSourced · · Score: 1

    t doesn't matter that Android completely dominates in the poorer parts of Africa, India, and China

    Right, but only up to a point. If you have to travel to Africa and live there for some time, and the local apps (informing of the danger of crocodile infestation, for example) are only developed for Android, then it matters a bit for you that you only have an iOS device (that bit being perhaps the hand lost to a crocodile's bite).

    Market share is always important, and one platform tends to push others out, as the cost of developing for more than one platform is always bigger than developing for just one. In the long run, "there can be only one".

    --
    Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
  34. Re:0.4 of a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ugh, android has the same apps as ios. Yeah, your shitty game isn't on android, big deal. Apps and games that matter are there.
    Also windoze is a late bloomer. Up until win95 it was just a shitty shell above DOS that barely anyone used. I'm glad that idiot Balmer just laughed at iphones. Watching M$ failing is priceless.

  35. Re:0.4 of a phone by countach · · Score: 1

    Errm, are there in fact any local apps that a foreigner in the country would care about? I doubt it, but what do I know.

  36. This could be the year by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That Windows finally makes it to the smartphone.

  37. Re:0.4 of a phone by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    What the report also doesn't say ... is that the smartphone market is really the Android market.

    Because it isn't true. Android is dominant, but Apple still hangs onto a significant and lucrative portion of it. Not that I will shed a tear when Apple finally goes the way of Blackberry, but I fervently hope that viable forks of Android/Linux are well established by then, otherwise we the world are truly in trouble.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  38. Re:0.4 of a phone by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Five years out of date. Even though we know how it continues, that graph does not tell us.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  39. Re:0.4 of a phone by Tough+Love · · Score: 1

    Completely agree with you, that Apple dominates the market of shallow prats.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  40. Re:0.4 of a phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    apple knows their target market well.

  41. So... by KennyP · · Score: 1

    No love for my JAVA OS run phone?