12 ms·

Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

124 points by 11031a 14y ago

Quekster 14y ago
Actually, it powers 75% of all smartphones sold in the third quarter: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/01/android-grabs-75-0-market-share-in-q3-followed-by-14-9-for-ios-and-4-3-for-blackberry/ http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/01/android-grabs-75-0-m...
- rbii 14y ago
  Yeah, and 75% of all smartphones being sold today. And tomorrow :)
  - gte910h 14y ago
    This feels a bit cheerleadery? This is actual PHONE MARKETSHARE being delivered (not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Additionally, looking at just phones is a myopic view of the mobile landscape, when tablets and mini tablets (aka, iPodTouches and sub 6" android tablets) are a huge source of gaming revenue.
    - bunderbunder 14y ago
      On the gaming revenue side, it's interesting that iOS accounts for about 85% of money spent on mobile games, and their share of the whole app revenue pie is similarly sized. This suggests a very different picture than what we get from the raw handset shipment numbers. For the sake of argument, let's redefine how we subdivide the the mobile phone market market in terms of how people use their devices rather than what their devices are capable of. Considered that way, perhaps the app revenues suggest that Apple still completely dominates the smartphone market, and Android's handset shipment numbers simply reflect that the dumbphone market has been flooded with a smartphone OS because nowadays even the free phones are running Android.
      - MikeKusold 14y ago
        I'd be interested in a link to that stat. I remember reading something similar a year ago and I'm curious if the landscape has since changed.
      - danmaz74 14y ago
        All the basic apps that define a smartphone are free on Android (and on iOS, AFAIK), so your definition only makes sense if you redefine a smartphone as a tool that successfully forces you to spend money on software...
        bunderbunder 14y ago
        Yup. In fact, that's exactly how I was proposing we might redefine it. It's a worthwhile way to look at it because simply having apps to do certain things isn't really what defines a smartphone - feature phones were letting users buy and install BREW or J2ME apps for a long time. This includes all the basic apps that people tend to expect on their phones nowadays, like Facebook. So, apps being nothing new, the line's always been a bit blurry. Using what OS the phone runs as a distinguishing criterion works fine, of course, and it's probably the most sensible one overall. But distinguishing based on the way people interact with the device, regardless of what OS it runs is also illuminative. In this case, for example, it would seem to explain why the market for 3rd-party software (the thing that's supposed to be the heart and soul of smartphones) is so tiny on Android despite it being far and away the biggest smartphone platform. Perhaps it's the case that, regardless of what they're capable of, a huge percentage of the Android devices out there are still being used as if they were feature phones.
    - drivebyacct2 14y ago
      >(not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Why does that matter? [Samsung, Moto, etc] get that money. The subsidy doesn't just make the phone magically free. Besides, either way, it's NOT an iOS sale, or an WP7 sale, and that matters just as much.
      - gte910h 14y ago
        It implies a consumer preference that isn't necessarily there and appears to show android at a higher share of device use than is likely a real picture of actual user behavior. Information that is wrong makes people make poor decisions. I would feel bad if someone overvalued this marketshare number when choosing to make apps, for instance. Additionally the actual statistic gathered is "shipments" not "sales" which is a different definition. One KEY point there is TONS of iPhone 5's didn't ship in Q3, even though they were purchased then. Lastly, quoting "shipments of smartphones" then talking about the iPad mini as if it's in these numbers makes the article itself dubious (it is not taken into account in these numbers). I just want people to stop cheerleading and report facts. Android is leading in # of screens, I just want someone to quote accurate, non-bullshitty numbers about it, instead of fake sliced up numbers about it that give a false picture of the landscape because it ignores members of the ecosystem (Ignoring small tablets such as the galaxy S 5"/iPod Touches is like ignoring PCs that just don't happen to have a 802.11b card installed in them: A weird way to slice statistical data).
  - Steko 14y ago
    No it's 75% in the quarter when Apple's sales are always the lowest. Last year Apple sales went from 17 million the quarter before 4S launch to 37 million in the holiday/launch quarter. There's a week and change of iphone 5 launch in the prior quarter numbers for Apple but you'd still expect them to deliver 40-50 million phones in this quarter. Don't get me wrong the % of Android sales today is high. But simple math tells you that it's not going to be as high as it was in August.
- moolcool 14y ago
  I think this is just low end Android phones becoming cheaper than feature phones.
- ajross 14y ago
  Those are the current, just-released numbers (in an analysis from IDC). To argue that those don't represent "now" seems to be to be a silly semantic quibble -- there will never be sales numbers for "now" if these aren't them.
gte910h 14y ago
This title feels a bit cheerleadery? This is actual phone handset market being delivered (not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Additionally, looking at just phones is a myopic view of the mobile landscape, when tablets and mini tablets (aka, iPodTouches and sub 6" android tablets) are a huge source of gaming revenue as well as advertisement revenue. I think the ecosystem is still a vibrant multiplayer arena.
- Kylekramer 14y ago
  I honestly don't see how you get cheerleadery out of "Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold". That is about as factual as it gets.
  - gte910h 14y ago
    Because it's not true? Android is the OS loaded on 75% of the phones shipped in Q3. Not sold. For instance: iPhone5 was not shipped for the vast majority of people who purchased it when released in Q3, even though they purchased it in Q3. This is lying with stats. It's annoying as hell.
- Goronmon 14y ago
  The title makes a clear statement, and the article itself questions whether a Google dominated smartphone landscape is a good thing. I'm not seeing the "cheerleadery" side of this.
  - gte910h 14y ago
    The title says sales, the data says shipped. The title says "smartphones" the actual software platforms (aka Android vs iOS vs whatever else) are mobile devices, not phones. The first part alone really screws up the numbers, as tons of iPhone5s were sold, but not shipped, in Q3.
- jonknee 14y ago
  > This is actual phone handset market being delivered (not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Sold is sold, subsidies just change who is doing the buying.
dquigley 14y ago
Clay Christensen in the Innovators Solution lays out an explanation for what is happening here. Apple used vertical integration to make a giant leap forward with their iPhone that you couldn't have made in a non-integrated company. They ended up overshooting the typical consumer's needs though in the following iterations of the iPhone. And the technology that was at first difficult for competitors to reproduce became easier to replicate (thanks in part to Android). Samsung, HTC, and others were able then to provide good enough devices (and in certain ways, better devices) to consumers at a lower price point. Apple's response has been to move up market towards tablets, and have been able to use their vertical integration to produce devices that no other Android manufacturer could match at first. Microsoft is building their own device to have similar quality, but they are doing it as a vertically integrated company. Amazon showed you could do a partial vertical integration (heavily customized Android and integration into their own media resources) to take away the low end of the tablet market from Apple. And slowly the Android tablet manufacturers are catching up to Apple. So what this makes me ask is what will be next for Apple? They haven't been good at playing the high-volume, low-profit electronics game, so they'll need another "blockbuster", highly innovative device, and I am excited to see what that will be. It drives the industry forward, and creates exciting new technology we all get to benefit from eventually.
- cloudwalking 14y ago
  You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy Chinese won't drop too much (30% of market? 45%?). Android will claim the entire low-cost market--the rest of China, India, South America. I think Apple will maintain its profits, but Android will secure the majority of the world market. Apple is trying to maximize percentage of industry profit rather than percentage of industry sales.
  - nestlequ1k 14y ago
    Sure, Apple is trying to maximize profit. But how does that help me? We're developers right? We need to find the market with the most potential. If I'm developing for a platform where the platform holder is laser focused on maximizing their profit, but not their marketshare... it seems like I've made the wrong choice. I see a lot of iPhone devs (not you specifically) try to justify Apple's shrinking marketshare by saying it's fine since Apple is still taking the total profit in the industry. Either they've heavily invested their earnings into AAPL, or they're trying to pull any stat they possibly can to justify their platform choice.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
I don't see why they demonize this: "If Google decides that HTML5 web apps are the way forward, making them a first-class citizen in future versions of Android, then other mobile OSes will have no other option than to follow suit."
- azakai 14y ago
  They don't demonize it, they are just showing how much power Google will have. Power that could be used for good or for bad from the world's perspective, but will always be used for Google's benefit.
atirip 14y ago
So now that one company is Google, that one man is Andy Rubin and that one phone is Android. Thats the future we wanted. Thank God Google acted.
- eta_carinae 14y ago
  Android is not a phone. If we standardize on one operating system, I definitely prefer a future where we have thousands of phones to choose from and not just five. Thank you Google for saving us from an Apple monopoly.
  - Steko 14y ago
    Talk of an Apple monopoly is silly. Apple has shown no interest in building budget smartphones. That market, which is hundreds of millions of phones per year, was always going to go to whichever competitor which managed to both copy the iphone the best and kowtow to the carriers. WebOS only met the first criteria, Nokia only the second, Android checked both boxes.
  - sinnerswing 14y ago
    Thank God for giving us a shitty alternative to iOS.
  - arrrg 14y ago
    I think there is no chance in hell that an Apple monopoly would ever happened. Apple has never shown interest in that. Even with their tablets they do not.
- diminish 14y ago
  Andy Rubin as a startup founder of 10 years ago is to be congratulated, too. His vision of an open source, Linux-based mobile OS has wiped away the competition and is now the dominant player. Android has stolen most superlatives from competitors in just 4 years. That said, I believe it is time for start-ups to get ready for a post-Android world where the forking, customization power of open source software, combined with the diversity and power of mobile chips, will come into play. New categories of devices, solutions based on powerful mobile chips may open up new horizons for aspiring startups.
nchomsky 14y ago
So if Apple has 70% of the market share, how does Android make up 75%? It can only be less than 30%. Can anyone clarify?
- daenz 14y ago
  I think that because the sentence includes "of all smartphones sold", the discrepency is describing a shift in market share. Apple could have 70% now, and 75% of all new devices sold now could be Android. They were in the game first, and aggregated a huge market share, but now it is shifting.
neya 14y ago
This is seriously good news. What many people don't realize is how powerful Android is. Open Source doesn't mean shitty quality software, contrary to popular belief. Android can do so many things that other Operating systems still cannot provide. All Android needs is some time, and some iterations and no one can even dream of killing it (like many plan to). Because, if anything history has taught us, Open Source will eventually win the war. I own a 42" Sony Bravia LCD TV. When I first purchased it, I got a hard copy of the GNU/GPL license. Wondering, I did a quick search and found out that my TV runs on Linux! Now, here's the sad part - Since I'm somewhat techie, I know my TV is powered by Open Source software. But the average end consumer doesn't know and doesn't care much, he just wants a good TV. So, the main area where open Source is weak at is marketing. And this too, is only a matter of time, till it catches up, I believe. Imagine if the Linux foundation advertised on TV like Apple did, for their Mac vs PC commercials? Then the average consumer would probably care. If you have a good product, you should let people know about it. Sadly, even the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 have poor marketing in this context (Michael Arrington wrote a wonderful article on this[1]). One day, Android will reach 95%+, and I will live to watch it happen and I will tell my kids and my grandchildren without hesitation - "This is the future." [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/31/hey-google-your-nexus-7-marketing-images-look-like-crap/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/31/hey-google-your-nexus-7-mar...
- briandear 14y ago
  Android is open source? Cool! Where's the source code?
  - neya 14y ago
    http://source.android.com/ http://source.android.com/
    - taligent 14y ago
      Actually Android is closer to shared source than open source. A typical open source project has an open repository, allows third party contributors, open issue tracking etc. Last time I checked Android had none of these and only released source code after a release.
rbanffy 14y ago
I don't think a monopoly made on top of an open-source platform makes any sense.
danielrhodes 14y ago
This whole article reads like Google is announcing it's dominance, as if it's some Christian crusader claiming a conquered land in the name of the Pope and Christianity. Here's my interpretation of some of what I read: "If Google decides that HTML5 web apps are the way forward, making them a first-class citizen in future versions of Android, then other mobile OSes will have no other option than to follow suit." (We claim absolute power) "Conversely, Google could decide to cease development of the stock Android browser — much like Microsoft did with IE4 — and push alternative technologies like Native Client or Dart, forcing other mobile OSes to embrace Google’s tech." (You must all submit to our new power) "And what about the other platforms? It seems like Apple is destined to occupy a tiny corner of the market — no doubt making fat profits, but losing control of the market and all-important mind share in the process." (Your former leader has been dethroned and never had your interests in mind anyways) "You may point to the fact that Android is open source, thus making such a monopoly rather toothless. This might be theoretically true, but in practice Google still holds all the keys." (Don't question Google's power) "Over the next few years, Google will develop unprecedented control of the fastest growing tech market in the world. Will Google use this power to gently steer and cajole the web and mobile computing markets towards green pastures, or will it cave like Microsoft and squeeze as much money as it can from Android?" (Will Google be a benevolent leader or a ruthless dictator? You will find out.)
- wutbrodo 14y ago
  Apparently you're unaware that extremetech.com is not a part of Google (and unaffiliated with them, as far as I know). All of those quotations are from the article, which Google didn't write...so I fail to see how any of this is "Google announcing its dominance" (as opposed to ExtremeTech announcing their perception of Google's dominance, which is a VASTLY different thing).
jusben1369 14y ago
What Apple does well: Take a nascent but exploding market and create a fantastically superior experience via vertical integration. Get way out of in front of the competition and own the consumer mindshare: PC/iPod/iPhone (almost Newton) What Apple doesn't do well: Own the mass market. The one place they have - music players - has really collapsed as a stand alone market and merged in with smart phones. (ie no one in the right mind today would launch a stand alone music/video player) Why Apple is in trouble: 47% of all revenue comes from the iPhone and it's clear that that market has moved past their sweet spot. What Apple needs to do: Understand that (to them) this market is mature. It's not about fighting Android. It's about finding the next PC/Music Player/Phone where the potential is huge and the vertical integration of hardware and software will blow away the competition for 3 - 5 years. What is that? I don't know or I'd be running the place! My fear is Steve would have known but Tim does not seem like he would.
- Steko 14y ago
  "Why Apple is in trouble: 47% of all revenue comes from the iPhone and it's clear that that market has moved past their sweet spot" This is not clear at all. Selling tiny computers with mobile broadband is clearly going to be the biggest hardware business for the next 10+ years and 10 years from now the device that generates the bulk of Apple's revenues will probably still be called an iPhone. It may bear little similarity to the current slab/multitouch input phone of today but will serve all the same purposes. And Android based competitors may be 90% of the market then and Apple may still be the most profitable company in the world. I have a hard time believing the story that 'Apple is in trouble' because they have the highest margins in one the biggest markets which is still rapidly growing.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    >Selling tiny computers with mobile broadband is clearly going to be the biggest hardware business for the next 10+ years and 10 years from now the device that generates the bulk of Apple's revenues will probably still be called an iPhone. It is completely my opinion, but I also suspect the opinion of others that if that's Apple's strategy, they're in for a very rude awakening. They're taking an increasingly smaller portion of the pie and there is a lot of pie left to take.
drp4929 14y ago
The title is misleading. It should read : "Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold <b> in 3rd quarter of 2012 </b>"
panabee 14y ago
Apple has designed its business model to cede the mass market. It focuses on capturing the majority of industry profits, not sales. It should surprise no one that more phones ship with Android than iOS. As a platform company, this strategy exposes a vulnerable flank since historically the platform company with the most market share attracts the best software and the most end users. The greatest difference between mobile devices and PCs? There is no IBM, which essentially standardized a powerful alternative to the Apple PC within a year or two. Android is not a single alternative but more an umbrella term encompassing several alternatives. There is still too much fragmentation today in the Android ecosystem, and its structure fosters fragmentation -- not standardization. The device manufacturers saw how commoditization destroyed the PC manufacturers, and they are intent to avoid the same fate. Unless something changes, Android devices from one manufacturer will continue to vary from other Android devices in terms of size and functionality. For developers, the right way to segment operating systems is not Android vs iOS vs Windows 8, but by code reach. In other words, how many devices can be reached with the same code base? My hunch is iOS will have an impressive lead in this metric, but I'm happy to be proven wrong if someone has contradicting data. Apple is content to yield marginally profitable customers to "Android," provided Android remains as fragmented as it is today. If Android were to unite, or some other OS emerges, allowing devs to target 75% of the market with (fundamentally) the same code base, the threat to Apple becomes far more dangerous.
- bdcravens 14y ago
  This was more true 2 years ago. I think they are trying to capture back some of that "mass market" where people expect a cheap or free phone as opposed to the high end where we are used to paying $200-400: http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/ http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/ (4: free, 4S: $99)
  - Steko 14y ago
    These are contract prices. The unlocked iphone 4 still sells for $450+ which is around what carriers pay. What we talk about when we talk about the "mass market" is the half a billion plus smartphones sold this year that range anywhere from less then $100 to $350. Apple has thus far refused to compete in this part of the market.
bdcravens 14y ago
I keep thinking this will be a bit antitrust concern in future years. I'm not even going to get into the FTC's recommendation to sue over patents: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ftc-staff-said-to-formally-recommend-suing-google-over-patents/2012/11/02/830f8bb6-24a5-11e2-92f8-7f9c4daf276a_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ftc-staff-said-to-for... 1) To make use of many Android device features, you typically are required to have a Google account. (Ditto with the iPhone, but it's a bigger deal the more you control the market) 2) The pressure exerted on Aliyun 3) By default, Google search in the browser. How long before there's pressure for a "search engine ballot" screen?
- Kylekramer 14y ago
  Google already offers a ballot for desktop Chrome, I wouldn't be too surprised if they offer one for Android at some point.

124 points by 11031a 14y ago

Actually, it powers 75% of all smartphones sold in the third quarter: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/01/android-grabs-75-0-market-share-in-q3-followed-by-14-9-for-ios-and-4-3-for-blackberry/ http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/01/android-grabs-75-0-m...

rbii 14y ago
Yeah, and 75% of all smartphones being sold today. And tomorrow :)
- gte910h 14y ago
  This feels a bit cheerleadery? This is actual PHONE MARKETSHARE being delivered (not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Additionally, looking at just phones is a myopic view of the mobile landscape, when tablets and mini tablets (aka, iPodTouches and sub 6" android tablets) are a huge source of gaming revenue.
  - bunderbunder 14y ago
    On the gaming revenue side, it's interesting that iOS accounts for about 85% of money spent on mobile games, and their share of the whole app revenue pie is similarly sized. This suggests a very different picture than what we get from the raw handset shipment numbers. For the sake of argument, let's redefine how we subdivide the the mobile phone market market in terms of how people use their devices rather than what their devices are capable of. Considered that way, perhaps the app revenues suggest that Apple still completely dominates the smartphone market, and Android's handset shipment numbers simply reflect that the dumbphone market has been flooded with a smartphone OS because nowadays even the free phones are running Android.
    - MikeKusold 14y ago
      I'd be interested in a link to that stat. I remember reading something similar a year ago and I'm curious if the landscape has since changed.
    - danmaz74 14y ago
      All the basic apps that define a smartphone are free on Android (and on iOS, AFAIK), so your definition only makes sense if you redefine a smartphone as a tool that successfully forces you to spend money on software...
      - bunderbunder 14y ago
        Yup. In fact, that's exactly how I was proposing we might redefine it. It's a worthwhile way to look at it because simply having apps to do certain things isn't really what defines a smartphone - feature phones were letting users buy and install BREW or J2ME apps for a long time. This includes all the basic apps that people tend to expect on their phones nowadays, like Facebook. So, apps being nothing new, the line's always been a bit blurry. Using what OS the phone runs as a distinguishing criterion works fine, of course, and it's probably the most sensible one overall. But distinguishing based on the way people interact with the device, regardless of what OS it runs is also illuminative. In this case, for example, it would seem to explain why the market for 3rd-party software (the thing that's supposed to be the heart and soul of smartphones) is so tiny on Android despite it being far and away the biggest smartphone platform. Perhaps it's the case that, regardless of what they're capable of, a huge percentage of the Android devices out there are still being used as if they were feature phones.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    >(not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Why does that matter? [Samsung, Moto, etc] get that money. The subsidy doesn't just make the phone magically free. Besides, either way, it's NOT an iOS sale, or an WP7 sale, and that matters just as much.
    - gte910h 14y ago
      It implies a consumer preference that isn't necessarily there and appears to show android at a higher share of device use than is likely a real picture of actual user behavior. Information that is wrong makes people make poor decisions. I would feel bad if someone overvalued this marketshare number when choosing to make apps, for instance. Additionally the actual statistic gathered is "shipments" not "sales" which is a different definition. One KEY point there is TONS of iPhone 5's didn't ship in Q3, even though they were purchased then. Lastly, quoting "shipments of smartphones" then talking about the iPad mini as if it's in these numbers makes the article itself dubious (it is not taken into account in these numbers). I just want people to stop cheerleading and report facts. Android is leading in # of screens, I just want someone to quote accurate, non-bullshitty numbers about it, instead of fake sliced up numbers about it that give a false picture of the landscape because it ignores members of the ecosystem (Ignoring small tablets such as the galaxy S 5"/iPod Touches is like ignoring PCs that just don't happen to have a 802.11b card installed in them: A weird way to slice statistical data).
- Steko 14y ago
  No it's 75% in the quarter when Apple's sales are always the lowest. Last year Apple sales went from 17 million the quarter before 4S launch to 37 million in the holiday/launch quarter. There's a week and change of iphone 5 launch in the prior quarter numbers for Apple but you'd still expect them to deliver 40-50 million phones in this quarter. Don't get me wrong the % of Android sales today is high. But simple math tells you that it's not going to be as high as it was in August.
moolcool 14y ago
I think this is just low end Android phones becoming cheaper than feature phones.
ajross 14y ago
Those are the current, just-released numbers (in an analysis from IDC). To argue that those don't represent "now" seems to be to be a silly semantic quibble -- there will never be sales numbers for "now" if these aren't them.

gte910h 14y ago

This title feels a bit cheerleadery? This is actual phone handset market being delivered (not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Additionally, looking at just phones is a myopic view of the mobile landscape, when tablets and mini tablets (aka, iPodTouches and sub 6" android tablets) are a huge source of gaming revenue as well as advertisement revenue. I think the ecosystem is still a vibrant multiplayer arena.

Kylekramer 14y ago
I honestly don't see how you get cheerleadery out of "Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold". That is about as factual as it gets.
- gte910h 14y ago
  Because it's not true? Android is the OS loaded on 75% of the phones shipped in Q3. Not sold. For instance: iPhone5 was not shipped for the vast majority of people who purchased it when released in Q3, even though they purchased it in Q3. This is lying with stats. It's annoying as hell.
Goronmon 14y ago
The title makes a clear statement, and the article itself questions whether a Google dominated smartphone landscape is a good thing. I'm not seeing the "cheerleadery" side of this.
- gte910h 14y ago
  The title says sales, the data says shipped. The title says "smartphones" the actual software platforms (aka Android vs iOS vs whatever else) are mobile devices, not phones. The first part alone really screws up the numbers, as tons of iPhone5s were sold, but not shipped, in Q3.
jonknee 14y ago
> This is actual phone handset market being delivered (not necessarily sold, as many of them are subsidized to $0). Sold is sold, subsidies just change who is doing the buying.

dquigley 14y ago

Clay Christensen in the Innovators Solution lays out an explanation for what is happening here. Apple used vertical integration to make a giant leap forward with their iPhone that you couldn't have made in a non-integrated company. They ended up overshooting the typical consumer's needs though in the following iterations of the iPhone. And the technology that was at first difficult for competitors to reproduce became easier to replicate (thanks in part to Android). Samsung, HTC, and others were able then to provide good enough devices (and in certain ways, better devices) to consumers at a lower price point. Apple's response has been to move up market towards tablets, and have been able to use their vertical integration to produce devices that no other Android manufacturer could match at first. Microsoft is building their own device to have similar quality, but they are doing it as a vertically integrated company. Amazon showed you could do a partial vertical integration (heavily customized Android and integration into their own media resources) to take away the low end of the tablet market from Apple. And slowly the Android tablet manufacturers are catching up to Apple. So what this makes me ask is what will be next for Apple? They haven't been good at playing the high-volume, low-profit electronics game, so they'll need another "blockbuster", highly innovative device, and I am excited to see what that will be. It drives the industry forward, and creates exciting new technology we all get to benefit from eventually.

cloudwalking 14y ago
You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy Chinese won't drop too much (30% of market? 45%?). Android will claim the entire low-cost market--the rest of China, India, South America. I think Apple will maintain its profits, but Android will secure the majority of the world market. Apple is trying to maximize percentage of industry profit rather than percentage of industry sales.
- nestlequ1k 14y ago
  Sure, Apple is trying to maximize profit. But how does that help me? We're developers right? We need to find the market with the most potential. If I'm developing for a platform where the platform holder is laser focused on maximizing their profit, but not their marketshare... it seems like I've made the wrong choice. I see a lot of iPhone devs (not you specifically) try to justify Apple's shrinking marketshare by saying it's fine since Apple is still taking the total profit in the industry. Either they've heavily invested their earnings into AAPL, or they're trying to pull any stat they possibly can to justify their platform choice.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

I don't see why they demonize this: "If Google decides that HTML5 web apps are the way forward, making them a first-class citizen in future versions of Android, then other mobile OSes will have no other option than to follow suit."

azakai 14y ago
They don't demonize it, they are just showing how much power Google will have. Power that could be used for good or for bad from the world's perspective, but will always be used for Google's benefit.

atirip 14y ago

So now that one company is Google, that one man is Andy Rubin and that one phone is Android. Thats the future we wanted. Thank God Google acted.

eta_carinae 14y ago
Android is not a phone. If we standardize on one operating system, I definitely prefer a future where we have thousands of phones to choose from and not just five. Thank you Google for saving us from an Apple monopoly.
- Steko 14y ago
  Talk of an Apple monopoly is silly. Apple has shown no interest in building budget smartphones. That market, which is hundreds of millions of phones per year, was always going to go to whichever competitor which managed to both copy the iphone the best and kowtow to the carriers. WebOS only met the first criteria, Nokia only the second, Android checked both boxes.
- sinnerswing 14y ago
  Thank God for giving us a shitty alternative to iOS.
- arrrg 14y ago
  I think there is no chance in hell that an Apple monopoly would ever happened. Apple has never shown interest in that. Even with their tablets they do not.
diminish 14y ago
Andy Rubin as a startup founder of 10 years ago is to be congratulated, too. His vision of an open source, Linux-based mobile OS has wiped away the competition and is now the dominant player. Android has stolen most superlatives from competitors in just 4 years. That said, I believe it is time for start-ups to get ready for a post-Android world where the forking, customization power of open source software, combined with the diversity and power of mobile chips, will come into play. New categories of devices, solutions based on powerful mobile chips may open up new horizons for aspiring startups.

nchomsky 14y ago

So if Apple has 70% of the market share, how does Android make up 75%? It can only be less than 30%. Can anyone clarify?

daenz 14y ago
I think that because the sentence includes "of all smartphones sold", the discrepency is describing a shift in market share. Apple could have 70% now, and 75% of all new devices sold now could be Android. They were in the game first, and aggregated a huge market share, but now it is shifting.

neya 14y ago

This is seriously good news. What many people don't realize is how powerful Android is. Open Source doesn't mean shitty quality software, contrary to popular belief. Android can do so many things that other Operating systems still cannot provide. All Android needs is some time, and some iterations and no one can even dream of killing it (like many plan to). Because, if anything history has taught us, Open Source will eventually win the war. I own a 42" Sony Bravia LCD TV. When I first purchased it, I got a hard copy of the GNU/GPL license. Wondering, I did a quick search and found out that my TV runs on Linux! Now, here's the sad part - Since I'm somewhat techie, I know my TV is powered by Open Source software. But the average end consumer doesn't know and doesn't care much, he just wants a good TV. So, the main area where open Source is weak at is marketing. And this too, is only a matter of time, till it catches up, I believe. Imagine if the Linux foundation advertised on TV like Apple did, for their Mac vs PC commercials? Then the average consumer would probably care. If you have a good product, you should let people know about it. Sadly, even the Nexus 10 and Nexus 4 have poor marketing in this context (Michael Arrington wrote a wonderful article on this[1]). One day, Android will reach 95%+, and I will live to watch it happen and I will tell my kids and my grandchildren without hesitation - "This is the future." [1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/31/hey-google-your-nexus-7-marketing-images-look-like-crap/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/31/hey-google-your-nexus-7-mar...

briandear 14y ago
Android is open source? Cool! Where's the source code?
- neya 14y ago
  http://source.android.com/ http://source.android.com/
  - taligent 14y ago
    Actually Android is closer to shared source than open source. A typical open source project has an open repository, allows third party contributors, open issue tracking etc. Last time I checked Android had none of these and only released source code after a release.

rbanffy 14y ago

I don't think a monopoly made on top of an open-source platform makes any sense.

danielrhodes 14y ago

This whole article reads like Google is announcing it's dominance, as if it's some Christian crusader claiming a conquered land in the name of the Pope and Christianity. Here's my interpretation of some of what I read: "If Google decides that HTML5 web apps are the way forward, making them a first-class citizen in future versions of Android, then other mobile OSes will have no other option than to follow suit." (We claim absolute power) "Conversely, Google could decide to cease development of the stock Android browser — much like Microsoft did with IE4 — and push alternative technologies like Native Client or Dart, forcing other mobile OSes to embrace Google’s tech." (You must all submit to our new power) "And what about the other platforms? It seems like Apple is destined to occupy a tiny corner of the market — no doubt making fat profits, but losing control of the market and all-important mind share in the process." (Your former leader has been dethroned and never had your interests in mind anyways) "You may point to the fact that Android is open source, thus making such a monopoly rather toothless. This might be theoretically true, but in practice Google still holds all the keys." (Don't question Google's power) "Over the next few years, Google will develop unprecedented control of the fastest growing tech market in the world. Will Google use this power to gently steer and cajole the web and mobile computing markets towards green pastures, or will it cave like Microsoft and squeeze as much money as it can from Android?" (Will Google be a benevolent leader or a ruthless dictator? You will find out.)

wutbrodo 14y ago
Apparently you're unaware that extremetech.com is not a part of Google (and unaffiliated with them, as far as I know). All of those quotations are from the article, which Google didn't write...so I fail to see how any of this is "Google announcing its dominance" (as opposed to ExtremeTech announcing their perception of Google's dominance, which is a VASTLY different thing).

jusben1369 14y ago

What Apple does well: Take a nascent but exploding market and create a fantastically superior experience via vertical integration. Get way out of in front of the competition and own the consumer mindshare: PC/iPod/iPhone (almost Newton) What Apple doesn't do well: Own the mass market. The one place they have - music players - has really collapsed as a stand alone market and merged in with smart phones. (ie no one in the right mind today would launch a stand alone music/video player) Why Apple is in trouble: 47% of all revenue comes from the iPhone and it's clear that that market has moved past their sweet spot. What Apple needs to do: Understand that (to them) this market is mature. It's not about fighting Android. It's about finding the next PC/Music Player/Phone where the potential is huge and the vertical integration of hardware and software will blow away the competition for 3 - 5 years. What is that? I don't know or I'd be running the place! My fear is Steve would have known but Tim does not seem like he would.

Steko 14y ago
"Why Apple is in trouble: 47% of all revenue comes from the iPhone and it's clear that that market has moved past their sweet spot" This is not clear at all. Selling tiny computers with mobile broadband is clearly going to be the biggest hardware business for the next 10+ years and 10 years from now the device that generates the bulk of Apple's revenues will probably still be called an iPhone. It may bear little similarity to the current slab/multitouch input phone of today but will serve all the same purposes. And Android based competitors may be 90% of the market then and Apple may still be the most profitable company in the world. I have a hard time believing the story that 'Apple is in trouble' because they have the highest margins in one the biggest markets which is still rapidly growing.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  >Selling tiny computers with mobile broadband is clearly going to be the biggest hardware business for the next 10+ years and 10 years from now the device that generates the bulk of Apple's revenues will probably still be called an iPhone. It is completely my opinion, but I also suspect the opinion of others that if that's Apple's strategy, they're in for a very rude awakening. They're taking an increasingly smaller portion of the pie and there is a lot of pie left to take.

drp4929 14y ago

The title is misleading. It should read : "Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold <b> in 3rd quarter of 2012 </b>"

panabee 14y ago

Apple has designed its business model to cede the mass market. It focuses on capturing the majority of industry profits, not sales. It should surprise no one that more phones ship with Android than iOS. As a platform company, this strategy exposes a vulnerable flank since historically the platform company with the most market share attracts the best software and the most end users. The greatest difference between mobile devices and PCs? There is no IBM, which essentially standardized a powerful alternative to the Apple PC within a year or two. Android is not a single alternative but more an umbrella term encompassing several alternatives. There is still too much fragmentation today in the Android ecosystem, and its structure fosters fragmentation -- not standardization. The device manufacturers saw how commoditization destroyed the PC manufacturers, and they are intent to avoid the same fate. Unless something changes, Android devices from one manufacturer will continue to vary from other Android devices in terms of size and functionality. For developers, the right way to segment operating systems is not Android vs iOS vs Windows 8, but by code reach. In other words, how many devices can be reached with the same code base? My hunch is iOS will have an impressive lead in this metric, but I'm happy to be proven wrong if someone has contradicting data. Apple is content to yield marginally profitable customers to "Android," provided Android remains as fragmented as it is today. If Android were to unite, or some other OS emerges, allowing devs to target 75% of the market with (fundamentally) the same code base, the threat to Apple becomes far more dangerous.

bdcravens 14y ago
This was more true 2 years ago. I think they are trying to capture back some of that "mass market" where people expect a cheap or free phone as opposed to the high end where we are used to paying $200-400: http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/ http://www.apple.com/iphone/compare-iphones/ (4: free, 4S: $99)
- Steko 14y ago
  These are contract prices. The unlocked iphone 4 still sells for $450+ which is around what carriers pay. What we talk about when we talk about the "mass market" is the half a billion plus smartphones sold this year that range anywhere from less then $100 to $350. Apple has thus far refused to compete in this part of the market.

bdcravens 14y ago

I keep thinking this will be a bit antitrust concern in future years. I'm not even going to get into the FTC's recommendation to sue over patents: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ftc-staff-said-to-formally-recommend-suing-google-over-patents/2012/11/02/830f8bb6-24a5-11e2-92f8-7f9c4daf276a_story.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ftc-staff-said-to-for... 1) To make use of many Android device features, you typically are required to have a Google account. (Ditto with the iPhone, but it's a bigger deal the more you control the market) 2) The pressure exerted on Aliyun 3) By default, Google search in the browser. How long before there's pressure for a "search engine ballot" screen?

Kylekramer 14y ago
Google already offers a ballot for desktop Chrome, I wouldn't be too surprised if they offer one for Android at some point.