10 ms·
Google Android Captures #1 Position in U.S. Smartphone Market
- mjfern 16y agoThese data spell significant trouble for Microsoft in the smartphone market. Despite launching Windows Phone 7 (WP7) with great fanfare in November 2010, Microsoft's market share in smartphones has in fact declined 1.7% from October 2010 through January 2011.
- alperakgun 16y agoapparently in late 2012, when nokia windows phones are released, microsoft mobile market share will approach zero.
- rbanffy 16y agoThe good news is that they can't have a negative market share.
- godDLL 16y agoThey made phones that sold next to no units, didn't they? That's "negative market share" by me.
- sorbus 16y agoThat's not what the term means, though, and using the real definition of market share it is impossible to have a negative market share, for the exact same reason that you can't have a negative number of people using a product. "Small market share and spectacularly unsuccessful products" is not, even in the loosest possible sense, the same as "negative market share."
- RyanMcGreal 16y agoThe data spell bad news for RIM as well: nearly all Android's gains came out of RIM's market share.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoThe market is growing, so it's not as simple as that. It's more like RIM is capturing below market rate from the new smartphone users, Apple is almost exactly at market rate and Android's scooping up the rest. How people move between platforms would be interesting, and become more important as smartphones reach saturation, but you can't really speculate from this data.
- keyle 16y agoThey weren't many phones supporting WP7 until recently. I think you will see that number grow slowly. They're a bit late to the party. I think it's a better OS than Android in my view. That said, the only people I know with WP7 are .NET developers ;)
- michaelbuckbee 16y agoThe fact that .NET developers are the ones buying WP7 phones might be a positive sign for the platform. WP7 needs apps.
- kaffiene 16y ago.NET apps need customers to buy them, too.
- akamaka 16y agoAmerican smartphone market.
- rbanffy 16y agoDo you have numbers for other markets? I gather in some of them Symbian is still going strong.
- mcantelon 16y agoThe world market as well: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/us-google-nokia-idUSTRE70U1VW20110131 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/us-google-nokia-id...
- jessriedel 16y agoWell, the OP's headline is about phone models and your rank is about operating systems. Is still don't know what phone model is #1 in the world.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoAlso European market (though this is sales, not marketshare): http://www.idc.com/about/viewpressrelease.jsp?containerId=prUK22729011§ionId=null&elementId=null&pageType=SYNOPSIS http://www.idc.com/about/viewpressrelease.jsp?containerId=pr... Android Explodes in Western Europe, Drives Market Growth and Becomes the Biggest Smartphone Operating System in 4Q10, says IDC Android growth was 1,580% year-on-year vs. Apple's 66%
- flogic 16y agoWell, I called that one. Where do I sign up to be a technologist. Or do I need to be wrong for that job?
- kreek 16y agoNice, that made me laugh.
- jimbokun 16y agoI hope this serves as a wakeup call to Apple, that their position is not so unassailable that they can continue looking for new ways to drive away partners and developers without consequences.
- lispm 16y agoWhy? Apple makes much of the profit. A report claims that Apple makes with 4% global market share 50% of the profits: http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/31/apples_4_mobile_market_share_rakes_in_over_half_the_industrys_profit.html http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/11/01/31/apples_4_mobil... Google does not even really sell a phone. Google sells you, the user.
- Kylekramer 16y agoThey currently make most of the profit. But with declining market share puts those profits in severe danger in the future. And god, if I never heard the "Google sells you" line again, it would be too soon. Apple has an ad platform too, you know.
- YooLi 16y ago"But with declining market share puts those profits in severe danger in the future." What declining market share?
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoComscore had them at 25% in December, 24.7% in January. http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/comScore_Reports_December_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/2/c...
- YooLi 16y agoThat report you linked also says that the number of smartphone users is up 60% vs. a year ago. So the negligible decrease of 0.3% is pretty meaningless when that ~25% is now 60% larger than it was a year ago.
- dchest 16y agoAgain?
- noahlt 16y agoIt seems like we get this story every week.
- jokermatt999 16y agoI think we actually got that exact same comment on the last version of this story I saw. I assume next week we'll get this one as well, and so on. :-) The story was news at some point, at least. It's a major milestone in the mobile OS wars.
- whatever_dude 16y agoI'd say it's because there are different milestones that people - fanboys, media, companies - set. There's so many ways to measure. Daily activations, current total market penetration... then there are variables like location (US or global?), range (smartphones or all mobile devices?)... Android is just winning them one by one, and this specific one happens to be one of the most important metrics, IMO.
- bonch 16y agoMaybe the Android fans needed something to cheer themselves up with after last week's Apple event. :)
- bane 16y ago#1 in volume doesn't always mean #1 in profit. I'm guessing Apple is trying to grab hard onto the market segment that brings in the most profit, while Google is going for the commodity, high volume, low margin option. The good news is that both models can coexist in the same market. After all, Nintendo's strategy is a bit like Google's, while Microsoft and Sony's are more like Google's. Nintendo has been quite profitable for a very long time even when they didn't own the entire market.
- rbanffy 16y ago> Apple is trying to grab hard onto the market segment that brings in the most profit, while Google is going for the commodity, high volume, low margin option. Hardly. Google doesn't make phones.
- tesseract 16y agoIf they did, though, it would make sense. Apple's business model is to make money by selling hardware; Google's is to make money by selling advertising.
- rbanffy 16y ago> Google's is to make money by selling advertising. They also collect licensing fees when phone makers use the Android name, Google trademarks and Google's software in the phones. I assume their foray into mobile phones is to fragment the market and prevent any other player from gaining a dominant market share.
- trotsky 16y agoThey also collect licensing fees when phone makers use the Android name, Google trademarks and Google's software in the phones. Is that accurate? Everything I've seen has indicated that if anything money moves the other way - Google sharing revenue on platform ads (and possibly other services) with oems and carriers. I haven't seen anyone claim that oems pay licensing fees to google for google apps and trademarks - I believe they are use granted based on platform spec compliance. I assume their foray into mobile phones is to fragment the market and prevent any other player from gaining a dominant market share. While undoubtedly google doesn't want another player to dominate the market, I believe the primary goals for android were to increase global pageviews, drive mobile adoption, and to avoid large upfront costs of paying for placement as the default search engine.
- valjavec 16y agoThis is so funny. Android is gaining it's share and everyone is trying to create iPhone killer. Noone is doing an Android killer:)
- tesseract 16y agoApple? ;)
- wmeredith 16y agoThat's because the iPhone is where the profit is at: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/21/pie-chart-apples-outrageous-share-of-the-mobile-industrys-profits/ http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/09/21/pie-chart-apples-outr... That link basically says that Jan-Jun 2010 Apple sold just under 3% of all smart phones in the world, but they took in 39% of all profit made in that sector in the same time period. It's really astounding what they've been able to do this relatively established market in just 3 or 4 years. No wonder everyone else was so blindsided. Apple isn't after market share or any metric in particular, they never have been. They're after making great products they want to use.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoI mentioned this above in relation to a different article about the same numbers, but that's not smartphone share, it's phone share. Since the phone market is mostly cheap, commodity items it shouldn't be a surprise that smartphone vendors have bigger profits than their phone share would indicate. Mostly people are impressed by it, because they think it's smartphone share. Perhaps they're mislead because some of Apple's competitors compete in both markets?
- YooLi 16y agoIt's because all Android has done is blurred the line between smart phone and feature phone. It's Android phones now that are the free and BOGO phones and that's exactly what Google wants--a base out there that they cannot be excluded from for their primary business, advertising. ex.: http://macdailynews.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/110303_android_liquidation.jpg?w=590&h=471 http://macdailynews.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/110303_andro...
- georgieporgie 16y agoSomewhat off-topic: is there any reason not to get Virgin Mobile's $150 LG Optimus V for the purpose of exploring Android development? Aside from smaller memory and lower-res camera, it looks like I don't miss out on anything from top of the line models.
- trotsky 16y agoI've played with one, it is a very acceptable phone and a fine dev platform. I think it's a good idea.
- georgieporgie 16y agoThanks for the thumbs-up. I snagged the last one in town at Target for $109 (if you view the gift card as 'cash'). I've already connected it via Wifi and downloaded apps. Looks like can play with quite a lot of features without even activating.
- discreteevent 16y agoThats exactly what I got it for and it turns out that its a good little phone. The resistive touch works more accurately for me than other phones of the same size and the battery lasts me 3 days most of the time.
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoThe LG Optimus screen is capacitive. You can get a stylus for it but it's a special capacitive one.
- athom 16y agoI just wish I could afford one. Can you still use the pay-as-you-go plans with this one?
- georgieporgie 16y agoAs I understand it, the cheapest plan is $25/mo with unlimited data, 300 minutes voice, and no contract. Edit: also, I saw on Slickdeals.net that Target is/was selling them for $129 and you get a $20 gift card.
- samirmm 16y agoInteresting sidebar in the comscore report: In the continuously contentious debate as to whether the future of mobile apps are downloaded or browser-based, we see a gain in both, but native apps seems to have had a marginal edge in gain. Would be cool to see this data over a longer window. Used browser; 36.2%; 37.0%; 0.8 Used downloaded apps; 33.7%; 35.3%; 1.6
- nl 16y agoI wonder how much of the gain in app usage can be attributed to the new version of the Android market, which I think shipped during this time period. We'd have to see app usage by platform stats for that though I guess.
- rufo 16y agoiPhone is only one small piece of the iOS puzzle, though - iPod touches and iPads add a not-small chunk to iOS' marketshare.
- megablast 16y agoYes, but that does not invalidate the data presented here. It is worth comparing smartphones, to see how others are fairing in this market segment, and it is worth comparing entire OS marketshare, to see what everyone is using. Apple is doing well, and Android is doing amazingly well.
- Tycho 16y agoI don't know about amazingly. It seems entirely predictable: phone makers desperate for something to rival iOS, and Google provide it for free. Why would they turn it down? Android's popularity, in a funny sort of way, is actually indicative of the iPhone's lack of serious competition. What would be amazing is if one of the Android handsets outsold the iPhone.
- nextparadigms 16y agoI don't think it was that predictable a year ago for most people. There were still many people thinking Android would have no chance against iPhone, and the last argument I heard about this was that iPhone would kill Android once it goes to Verizon, too. And this was only a couple of months ago when Android was already surging. A year ago when Android had 4% market share, ideas like that were a lot more popular.
- Tycho 16y agoI know some people thought otherwise but short of Apple open sourcing iOS, this was the only realistic outcome. There are quite a lot of phone makers out there who would need years to develop there own iOS, meanwhile phones have been improving year on year for as far as I remember. Therefore, the 'smartphone' would become ubiquitous, basically just the next step up for feature phones (fist they got smaller, then they got screens, then they got mp3 players, then they got WAP, then they got touch screens and proper internet etc.). Android was the clear option for all these companies to start producing smart phones. I think a better measure of what's going on would be consider how iPhone's share of the total mobile phone market has grown.
- whatever_dude 16y agoLook at this momentum http://plixi.com/photos/original/82369712 http://plixi.com/photos/original/82369712
- iworkforthem 16y agoEr... why is HTC not in the list?
- ZeroGravitas 16y agoThe first chart is all phones, not just smartphones and HTC only sell smartphones. You either have to sell lots of dumbphones too (like Samsung and LG) or sell a whole bunch of smartphones (RIM and Apple). I'm not sure whether Motorola is there mostly on the strengths of smartphone sales alone or combined with dumbphones.
- rooshdi 16y agoWe've seen this coming for quite some time. Both Google and Apple have very apparent opposing strategies in how they're going to attract customers to their respective platforms. It's almost like watching Mac vs Windows all over again. Apple is shooting for higher quality and high-end customers, while Google is aiming for a higher scale and much wider user base. In the end, both should co-exist and serve their niche just like Mac and Windows.