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Android trumps iPhone for market share

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Posted at 12:57pm by

android toy 1

Android has overtaken the iPhone to become the US’s second biggest smartphone platform, new data reveals.

According to research conducted by ComScore, in the three months to November Android phones accounted for 26 per cent of the US market, after expanding their share by 6.4 per cent over the period.

The growth saw Google’s platform supersede Apple’s iPhone iOS for the first time ever, pushing Cupertino’s operating system into third place with a 20 per cent share.

However, despite the shifting sands in the market, BlackBerry remains at the top of the smartphone tree with 33.5 per cent. Worryingly for business phone maker Research in Motion, though, is that this represents a whopping four per cent slide from the preceding quarter – suggesting that its once seemingly unassailable grip is slipping.

Android’s remarkable growth has been fuelled partly by a surfeit of cheaper handsets that allow users to get onboard for very little outlay as well as huge sales for higher-end devices from Samsung and HTC.

More news on: Business, Consumer trends, Apple, Android mobile phones, iPhone, iPhone 3GS, Smart mobile phones, Google, iPhone 4, iPhone 5

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  • @top10, 7th January 2011, via Twitter.

    Strike one up for the Big G: Android trumps iPhone for market share for first time ever -
    http://goo.gl/Iatsz #android #iphone #technology

  • Riddims Rob, 7th January 2011.

    Of course Android overtook apple in that quarter. There were loads of new handsets taht came to market. Let's see how the figures look in Q3 and Q4 when the next iPhone is out. These thing don't tell us anything except taht these things are cyclical in the course of a year and depend on release schdules.

    Reply

  • Martin Hill, 8th January 2011.

    However, Apple's overall iOS installed base is still double the size of Android and daily sales of iOS devices look to still be greater than Android. Commscore only counts the iPhone not the hot-selling iPod Touch or iPad despite including tablets like the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Tab in their Android smartphone OS figures.

    My question to you is: what are smartphone *operating system* marketshare figures useful for?

    If your answer is “so developers and consumers can see which is the largest platform for their software”, then why are you not including all iOS devices in your analysis? If you do that, then Apple’s installed base suddenly doubles and leaves both Android and Blackberry in the dust.

    If you answer that OS marketshare figures are important for advertisers, then again, why not include all iOS devices that share the same mobile browser and app platform?

    If you answer “so 3rd party hardware peripheral manufacturers know which platform to target” then you should be considering the far larger number of iOS devices that all share a common dock connector and standard form factor compared to the completely fragmented form factor and dock connector standards of the myriads of much smaller competitors.

    Of course consumers also want to know which phone has the most dock-equipped audio systems, car steering wheel interfaces, clock radios, etc and of course the answer is the iPhone which is virtually unchallenged in this regard.

    The fact is that Commscore includes tablets like the Streak and Galaxy Tab in their figures because Google requires all tablets include cell phone hardware in order to get access to the Android Marketplace. However, Commscore does not count the iPod touch and the iPad. The iPod touch even by itself boasts sales close to that of the iPhone, particularly during the pre-Christmas quarter.

    With the iPod touch and iPad completely obliterating the opposition in mini tablets and tablets respectively and sales of both equalling iPhone sales, Apple still has by far the largest mobile OS platform installed base easily doubling that of Android.

    In terms of new sales, back in October Apple was selling 270,000 iOS devices a day (peaking at 300,000 on some days) when Google was activating 200,000 Android devices. Recently Google announced they had hit 300,000 activations a day, and while we haven't yet heard what Apple's latest figures are it is highly likely they will be higher than Android thanks to the usual pre-Christmas sales surge of all iOS devices.

    If you are only interested in smartphones, then why aren’t you comparing Samsung, Motorola, HTC, etc all individually against Apple and RIM? After all, operating systems are only interesting if you are comparing in app platforms.

    Why can’t analysts make comparisons that are actually useful?

    -Mart

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