Nielsen, the media research firm has just released their data showcasing the performance of the US Smartphone market in the month of November 2010.
According to the report, Apple's iPhone still leads the pack when it comes to market share with over 28.6 per cent of the market. In second place, but falling sharply is old favourite RIM with its BlackBerry. It accounted for 26.1 per cent of the market share in November. In third spot was Android with 25.8 per cent. It is evident looking at these numbers how competitive the smartphone market has become. However, we should also notice another interesting trend.
When you bring in data from the months prior to November, it becomes clear how fast Android is eating in to both iPhone's and BlackBerry’s market share. In October 2010, Android was at a distant third spot with just 22.7 per cent of the smartphones market. At about the same time, RIM's BlackBerry boasted of 27.4 per cent and Apple's iPhone 27.9 per cent shares. In just a months’ time, Android has managed to not only increase its share, but also inch closer to its adversaries who are seeing a far lesser growth and adoption rates when compared to Android devices.
Also, if you consider the data for the past six months as much as 40% of new smartphone buyers opted for a device based on Android. At the same time, only 26.9 per cent of new smartphone buyers opted for iPhone. The number is even lower (19.2 per cent) for BlackBerry. The saving grace for Apple is that its market share continues to remain stable unlike RIM’s, which is continuously tumbling.
Looking at the way things are moving, it would be just a matter of months before Android overtakes iPhone and becomes the largest smartphone platform in the US. That said, let us also not forget that Verizon is planning to bring a CDMA version of the iPhone soon to Verizon. Analyst expect Verizon to sell at least eight to 12 million iPhone’s when the device arrives on their network. The obvious loser here would be Google in this case because Verizon happens to be the single largest carrier for Android smartphones. However in the long run, Android thanks to its larger variety of devices would eventually outpace iPhone.
Keeping the competition aside, there is a overall good news for the entire smartphones industry. After facing a slowdown of sorts in the past few years, the smartphones segment is growing at a rapid pace. As much as 45 per cent of recent phone buyers chose a smartphone over a feature phone, in November. This was almost 10% lower back in June 2010.
How do you think the smartphones market will change in the next few months? How long do you think Apple can hold on to its number one spot? Let us know your views in the comments section below.
[via Nielsen]
I think once verizon picks up the iPhone you’re going to see a lot of verizon customers get iPhones. I personly don’t have a smartphone but would get a verizon iPhones. I also know people that would switch from android to iPhone if they could keep there’s version service.
LOL….. that funny to compare….yuo compare “IPHONE” 91 kind only to RIM so many models and most is android thats only an OS…..think about it
This is an entirely fair comparison – we’re comparing *iOS platform* to *Android platform*.
It’s entirely Apple’s own fault if they choose to deliberately *limit* their platform to only 1 phone.
…or the iOS platform to the Blackberry platform.
Not true. Apple BUILT their phone. Google tried, and failed enormously. Apple succeeded, and they practically OWN the smartphone industry. Google will put their android OS on anything, because they failed so largely with their own phone. Don’t be a retard
You are wrong. Apple designed their phone based on an ARM processor, then contracted other companies like Foxconn to build it.
Google tried similarly, subcontracting to HTC to build their first phone (HTC Dream) and their first self-branded phone (Nexus One) – and you’re right, they were not super-successful, so if they were trying to be Apple with self-branded, non-manufacturer customised phones – then they’ve not succeeded so far … but Google has never tried to lock down the Android platform only to hardware under their control – so it’s not really relevant unless you can prove they wanted their own branded phones to dominate the Android phone market.
Apple do NOT practically “own” the smartphone market – this statement is just silly spin. Apple neither practically, nor virtually, nor actually owns the smartphone market. They do have a strong and co-leading position within it though. – for the moment.
Your suggestion that people who do not agree with your analysis are mentally deficient shows that you prefer to belittle your opponents rather than provide meritorious arguments in your favour. Which greatly reduces your credibilty.
This is where other companies fail and Apple succeeds. They keep comparing themselves to Apple when Apple compares to themselves. Iphone hardware vs android OS while Apple sees iOS vs Android OS. Either way, Apple is still on top.
Let’s not forget how long it took Apple to reach 20%+ market share vs how long it took Android. Is this really worthy news?
Your statement is incoherent and … well, if it’s incoherent, not much else needs to be said.
YES it *is* news!
Oh yes, I think I get it, you’re accusing companies of failing to compare their OS to Apple’s OS – but THAT’S THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS ARTICLE!
RIM has not failed, they’re declining, but not out, Google is not failing, Nokia has taken a big hit, but they haven’t failed yet, HTC, Sony Ericsson, LG, Samsung have NOT failed.
Given that Google has risen MUCH FASTER than Apple – this IS news. And the reason is because they work with other companies rather than hide in a room until they can do everything themselves. Let’s see how this year pans out.
I’ll repeat it again since some of the readers here seem to be a bit on the slow end. This is a comparison of iphone hardware vs android os. Yes, given that iphone hardware also runs iOS along with ipads and ipod touches.
One point you’re not quite comprehending is that Apple themselves do not compare their markets to other companies. They are #1 in the hardware market and #1 in the software market, ie., iOS (includes ipads, ipods and iphones).
As far as how quickly android rose to dominate market share? Well they haven’t yet. Sales are increasing but Apple still owns the market share. And this is iphone only market share which is something apple’s not using as a comparison.
CES is coming soon, maybe we’ll see some real news but then again, we probably won’t:
“The show is supposed to be about new and innovative products, but to a large extent what you’re going to see is the rest of the electronics world trying to catch up to what Apple is already doing.”
OH! I think I see what you’re trying to say! You’re accusing this Nielsen study of being unfair or irrelevant or biased because they are comparing Apple hardware in the form of the iphone to the Android OS!
Now I understand the mistake you are making!
This is a completely legitimate comparison and there’s nothing wrong with comparing Apple iphone with the total spectrum of Google Android. You see, they are *not* comparing Apple hardware to Google software.
They are comparing sectors of the smartphone market – this market is made up of phones (hardware) running operating systems (software). Android OS isn’t worth hot air without hardware to run it on … and Apple iOS is only available on their iphone.
So, they are comparing sectors of the market running different software, because this software largely accounts for user experience. And that’s fine.
“Apple themselves do not compare-” wait, stop. Who cares what Apple compares – this is about an independent market analyst noting a trend. Apple certainly does compare everything – but only privately, since it’s not in their commercial interest to look like they’re in a desperate race for their life. (a general statement about market competition, not a pointer at Apple’s currently healthy market situation).
Your next paragraph again mentions what Apple is comparing against – no one’s validating or caring or analysing Apple’s opinion here, your mindset seems to be too corporately protective of Apple to notice that others have the freedom to make their own analysis. If I owned a company that you were similarly a fan of – I would *not* hire you, because you’d surely tell me that my stuff was the best, and performing best, even it started declining, because you don’t seem *capable* of seeing anything from your favourites in a bad light.
It was inevitable. Whether you prefer Apple, RIM, Google, or Microsoft, it doesn’t really matter because this competition breeds innovation. They are all solid platforms which cater to their respective markets. Very interested in the new unveils from various OEMs with their line-ups of smartphones and tablets. 2011 should be an exciting year.
if android smart phones got nice applications in da future , why not switch my ipod i mean iphone to android ???
cant see any problem .
you can, why not.
dun forget Android user might switch to iOS also.
alot of ppl i know get Android as an alternative to iphone, but not the other way, and alot get Android only becos its cheaper.
i’ve got no statistics to support myself but again, you dun need statistics to understand
Dun understand why keep comparing iOS to Android. I’m no iphone fan but it doesn’t take a degree to understand IF iphone has a 20 percentage market share and Android 80, Apple earn the entire 20% while Android still need to split into different companis, am i right. Somemore there’s no one iphone but say within HTC there’s already so many Android phone.
You are *wrong*!
This is an entirely fair comparison – we’re comparing *iOS platform* to *Android platform*.
It’s entirely Apple’s own fault if they choose to deliberately *limit* their platform to only 1 phone.
Android is there on so many phones so its bound to be higher.
If Apple chooses to remain as a one-trick pony (phone-wise) it’s entirely their own fault.
You can’t compare a platform to an actual phone. If Apple had “40″ different phones based on their OS they would absolutely dominate. Of course Android is catching up.
Nobody’s comparing a platform to a phone – we’re comparing *iOS platform* to *Android platform*.
It’s entirely Apple’s own fault if they choose to deliberately *limit* their platform to only 1 phone (and a bunch of poddy toys and cut-back finger touch netbooks).
This is an entirely fair comparison. Once again, folks are getting stupendously Apple-centric in their analytical starting point.
Correction: “we’re comparing [the iphone portion of] *iOS platform* to *Android platform*.”
Keep scratching your head.
A fair comparison would be the number of phones google sold in all of 2010 vs number of phones apple sold in all of 2010, worldwide. Picking hot months for one company vs slow months of another is hardly a fair market share comparison. And these are estimated phones that shipped (from manufacturer to retail stores) not sold.
My head’s not itchy.
Well of course [the iphone portion of]! … I thought that was a given, considering the subject of this article. But I see, you’re confused by my mention of other iOS devices. I was merely acknowledging that while Apple is a one-trick pony in the mobile phone market, that they *do* make other things with their iOS … I wasn’t intending to suggest those other devices come into play in this analysis.
Though, it’s interesting to think about it: an ipod touch is an iphone without the phone, an ipod classic or an ipod nano or an ipod shuffle are like ipod touch without the touch – and also without various other functionality that ipod touch has, and the ipad is like a giant iphone without the phone (and without the camera), or at least without the network voice call ability, if it has the other 3G functions. But I still wasn’t trying to count them in the analysis here – just acknowledging that Apple can do other stuff.
It is reasonable for you to criticise the scope of the market review in terms of which months were compared, but I think it’s fair enough to compare month by month or quarter by quarter, as long as we can each consider the limitations of the scope of the timeframes in the analysis.
However, there are clear trends in the graphs shown.
It would only be unfair if they were comparing different months for the different platforms – which is what it sounds like you’re possibly accusing them of having done, but which they haven’t done.
This thing happen bcoz iphonehacks keep deleting my comments so my loving fans now became angry on iphonehacks n stop using their iphones so its market get down and iphonehacks have to be shut off…!!!
My response to this is: what? I don’t understand a thing you just tried to say.
Ohhhh my!!! So many apple fanboi’s here trying to ignore the real point of this article!! Can’t you apple fanboi’s just admit it?? It’s simple!! Thisis almost just like Microsoft vs apple!! Simple as that! Microsoft owns apple simply because they have a larger margin of hardwares that’s being rubbed on, unlike the stupid apple who just keeps the OS to themselves! Like what Zonkerton has been pointing over and over again! It’s apple’s fault that they’re limiting their OS to one platform! And no matter how you apple fanboi’s point out that it’s 1 vs 100000, the fact of the matter is, if android overtakes apple like how apple overtook RIM, the point is still clear, one company took down the other! Again, like M$ and Apple back in the day where M$ crushed apple!! And if it wasn’t for bill gate’s money where he gave apple for free, you apple fanboi’s wouldn’t even have any arguement today!! Admit it, android is catching up, and catching up fast! And it’s only a matter of time before it takes over Steve jobs! And that’s the reason for this article, not 1 vs 100000000!!
So many android fanbois here on an apple hacking site. Too bad most of us here don’t care enough about android to go posting on an android forum. It’s fanbois like yourself that makes apple even more successful.
Haha i totally agree with you john
John: it’s not about being a fanboi for android platform! Obviously, I’m here because I also own a 3GS iPhone.. Waiting for a jailbreak for the iOS 4.2.1.. And eventhough I’m an iPhone owner, I don’t turn into an Apple fanboi just like you.. I admit the fact that Android is indeed catching up.. Much like what the article was talking about.. I don’t make excuses like you, and certainly wouldn’t make any excuses for the Apple for limiting their OS to their platform! Android is catching up, iPhone is about to lose ground and that’s that! Accept it! Oh and btw, I’m an iPhone owner, but pretty soon I won’t be anymore as I’m getting tired of this BS where you have to do cat and mouse about jailbreaking this stupid iPhone! Apple already lost their case about people jailbreaking their iPhone, let us keep the jailbreak and sign the old iOS just like before already! Stupid steve jobs!
Here some thoughts:
- For sure, Android will pass iOS in terms of market share. Its obvious: iOS has one phone launch per year, while Android has around 50 new models of different manufacturers each year.
- That means Google strategy is better than apple one? While 100% of the revenue for iOS devices sales are for Apple, 0% of the revenues for, let’s say, Samsung Galaxy sales are for Google. (Yes, they make some money by licensing “non android core” apps from google like gmail client, maps and so, but that is peanuts compared to a 700$ iPhone revenue). Remember that Android is under Apache License.
- Providing only the SW for third party HW manufacturers is the best approach? Both Google and MS tried to compete with Apple by producing their own handset (Nexus from Google and … dont even remember the MS one) If they where happy with their position in market, why would they try to compete with HW also?
Because their Nexus phones come with stock Android thus first to get upgraded.
Solferico: Yes I agree with your point.. But then again, do you believe that that’s what Google has on their mind?? Do you really believe that they’re not making that much money from doing this?? You’re mistaken.. And you’re mistaken badly.. For one, google makes money for those applications that’s being sold on their android market.. Secondly, they make money for all the advertisements (where google really make their money from).. Once Android overtakes apple and RIM, they will make tons of money, eventhough their OS is open source and free.. Google is looking at this Android OS in long term, not for a chump profit that you will make in a short term.. Trust me, if google believes that they wouldn’t make money from this, they would drop the Android support in an instant.. Google isn’t stupid.. Android is pure business and not just some philanthropy OS..
First, I’m glad that we can discuss our points of view without the aggresiveness that other users are showing here, and that I don’t understand. You’re right: google is making big money with this for sure. What I was trying to say is that for every million iphones sold, Apple earns much more money than Google with the same amount of whatever Android device sales, so Apple can still feel comfortable with a second position. And in terms of “indirect revenue” (apps) Apple again earns more money (developer fees and sales&ads %) and there is 50% more apps in AppStore than in Android Market today. Both stores grows today about 1000 new apps per day.
To wrap up things: my point is that with the same market share, Apple makes much more profit of it than Google. If market trends continues like today… will apple mobile business be in danger because of Android? Probably, if Apple does nothing about it. But in innovation, nobody performs better than apple, so we can expect them to do so.
I agree with both of you to some extent but solferico is right on. Apple is not losing any sleep because of Android’s gains in market share. It’s not in their blood to produce products with sacrifices in quality and sub standard user experience as Google does. Google needs to have as many phones out there as possible because they clearly don’t make their money from the hardware as Apple does. Apple doesn’t really have to worry to much as long as they keep doing what they’re doing; innovation, quality, and great user experience.
Yes, I agree with what you were saying.. But the thing is, if iPhone loses ground to Android in the future, all those money they made now would soon be gone if Android continues to gain grounds and surpasses Apple marginally.. That’s just how this game is played anyways.. Look at Nokia and RIM for instance, back then they were on top.. They were the top dogs.. But now they bottomed out (at least Nokia did).. Why?? Because they both refused to move forward with their OS, and while doing so new technology is being introduced by Apple.. Yes, Apple.. They’re innovators and trend setters if you may, that’s for sure.. But then again, as what this article is pointing out, Android is gaining grounds FAST.. They’re not snoozers like RIM and Nokia.. And obviously, when a market shows that kind of growth (Android does) in a short period of time, it could only mean trouble to their competitors.. As more and more people are adopting the new “THING”.. Let’s face it.. A lot of people are getting tired of AT&T and apple’s limitations on their iPhone and iOS (errrm FLASH).. I’m one of those people and a bunch of my friends as well.. Actually, a lot of them have since moved on to Android.. And it wasn’t because it was cheap, but because you have more freedom to do the things you want with your “OWN” phone (uhhh, FLASH).. Not to mention google maps navigation software that comes free with the phone… So what’s there not to like with Android?? And I wanna correct one of the posters on this thread, those people that go with Android never go taking the iPhone route, especially after they root their phones and feeling the taste of freedom from the phone manufacturer.. It’s funny how one of googles employee was even caught saying that Android phone’s should be rooted and people should do so as well as the manufacturers (well not his exact words, but close).. Now, can Steve Jobs and Apple say that?? I don’t think so.. Also, I appreciate how we’re handling this conversation as well.. I guess that’s because we’re not fanboi’s like some of the posters here, that’s why we’re not aggressive to each other..
The misconception you seem to have is that android will overthrow apple and put them out of game. You seem to have forgotten how quickly apple gained market share to begin with. You only see the momentum android has at the moment.
The majority of apple users do not care for flash on our products. It’s a non issue, proven with sales numbers of ipods, ipads and iphones. The good thing that comes out of it all is the option for us as consumers to choose. Guess what happens to that iphone when someone switches from ios to android? I assume you guessed correctly. It gets sold to a new user who is now on ios. I can’t say the same for the cheap android devices that get discarded.
Unless you can predict the future, everything said here is just speculation. I personally don’t see android taking over apple as the market leader in the smartphone or portable os market. The numbers today can change and swing in a completely different direction just as it did when the iphone came out, then again when android gained momentum. The next few years will speak for itself when the time comes and when the dust is settled, iphones will still be as popular as they are today. Deal with it and stop hating.
who cares !! i have used them both.. there is no substitute for iphone 4…..
I think comparing OS with Android is useless, since only Apple is offering OS and 100s other are offering Android, so android users has more choices and more design that’s why it is picking up so fast….