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Android and iOS Continue to Dominate Smartphone Market as Windows Phone Shows Signs of Life
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As I've said before, what's the point in "winning" if the other guy gets all the prizes?
Yeah! Who cares about accuracy!
Android dominates the market but it's given away for free. If iOS, WP8, BB10, etc were given away for companies to do whatever they wanted, their penetration would skyrocket.
But those OS's are either proprietary or pay to license. Because you know, that's what actually makes money.
The real winner isn't Android, it's Samsung, who didn't have to spend money to build their own OS and came out on top regardless. And they already got an Android replacement in the wings already with Tizen.
Wouldn't surprise me one bit when Apple starts closing stores and laying off employees in 2 to 3 years. Apple does not know how to fight Android head on. A iPhone 5s will not do it and iPad's are losing market share to cheaper Android tablets. Apple needs new ideas; not sequels. Can we even count the iPad mini as a new idea? It's just a smaller version of iPad 2. Guess the innovation at Apple died with Steve Jobs.
About time for windows phone to show some life. Wouldn't be surprized to see that number to continue to increase.
How is Google not a winner? Have you seen the stocks lately? Isn't Google bigger than Microsoft now?
It's already fighting Android by putting out a cheaper iPhone. A big chunk of Android penetration is the budget and feature phone market, which gets dominated by pieces of plastic and whitebox handsets. Google makes nothing off this market because the phones go to people who can't afford to access the internet. If that cheaper iPhone is price competitive, what do you think people in China and India will buy? A no name Android whitebox piece of plastic or a branded iPhone? If the strategy works, expect iOS penetration to go up and Android penetration to go down.
could be... iOS marketshare is falling, apple stock plummet and scott forstall comes back to rescue the company as the CEO
Have you seen Microsoft's stock lately? It's at a 5 year high
And factoring in everything that came from releasing Android, including patent litigation and that Motorola acquisition, how much money has Google made off Android? None
That's true if you look at only unt sales.
But the iPhone still has quite a bit of mindshare, developer support, accessory support, etc. Nobody is forgetting that the iPhone is still a thing.
When you can walk into a gas station and see an iPhone speaker dock for sale... that says something
Also... when you can buy "an Android phone" for $80 in some very populous countries... are you really surprised that Android has such phenomenal sales numbers?
And that leads to another point... some people only have $80 to spend on a smartphone. So they're buying a phone within their budget and it happens to be running Android.
They're not choosing the Android platform based on such factors like apps or customizability. They're buying a phone because it's cheap.
It doesn't really say much about the strength of the Android platform.
Congrats to Google for having so many smartphones with their operating system installed on them.
But I'm still a fan of the #2 operating system.
Apple does not have a cheap iPhone.
It is subsidized by the carriers in some countries. Full price for a iPhone 4 is $400 + in a non subsidized market.
Not talking about the 4S or anything currently on the market. Talking about why they would enter the midrange and budget market, which they're planning to do
I still remember when the iPhone 'only sold 4-6 million units' in a quarter. And now, Windows Phone sales are considered disappointing with 'only 7 million sold units' in one single quarter.
I think they are doing great - and I believe that it is unreasonable to expect that a company goes from selling 3 million units to 30 million units a quarter. Going from 3 million to 7 million, like Windows Phone, year-over-year is a great accomplishment.
The "company" that you are talking about is not Microsoft, it is Nokia. And their smartphone and phone sales are collapsing. From smartphone market leader to 7 million in a quarter. That is a _huge_ drop.
Nokia was selling Symbian and switched to Windows. Take the totals: Symbian + Windows went from 13.4 to 8.2 million.
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I think he meant over $150 billion in cash.....
Anyways, these threads always bring out the best, most intelligent posters eh?
In the IT world, the trend is always much much much much more important than the present status.
That's true if you look at only unt sales.
But the iPhone still has quite a bit of mindshare, developer support, accessory support, etc. Nobody is forgetting that the iPhone is still a thing.
When you can walk into a gas station and see an iPhone speaker dock for sale... that says something
Also... when you can buy "an Android phone" for $80 in some very populous countries... are you really surprised that Android has such phenomenal sales numbers?
And that leads to another point... some people only have $80 to spend on a smartphone. So they're buying a phone within their budget and it happens to be running Android.
They're not choosing the Android platform based on such factors like apps or customizability. They're buying a phone because it's cheap.
It doesn't really say much about the strength of the Android platform.
Congrats to Google for having so many smartphones with their operating system installed on them.
But I'm still a fan of the #2 operating system.
Careful.....you're bordering on sanity, people here won't like that.
Better duck and cover
That's because you are looking at the smartphone market, and not the phone market. The growth in the smartphone market last year was from $200 feature phones changing to $200 smartphones; today the growth is from $100 feature phones changing to $100 smartphones. But the phone market isn't actually changing. In the phone market, Apple's market share has been growing continuously.
Apple makes 75% of the profits in the industry and has 140+ billion just sitting around. How's that for twisted logic?
But one should not forget that the majority of the Android phones is from a single company (Samsung).
However, it also mangles together cheap (bad) low end phones and good expensive phones - Samsung has both, Apple has only the high end market. Would be interesting to see that number broken out into different device 'classes'.
Just like Apple's cash, obviously the 60 billion in cash that Google has on hand was not used to "invest and innovate". Otherwise, they wouldn't have it!