Android Dominates Nearly 80% of Smartphone Market, iOS Drops to 13% Share

[haruhiko]

This looks inevitable. However, I think the thing that matters more to Apple is its share in the higher end of the market. Apple doesn't have to worry if the 13% market it currently has is the higher end part, much like the Mac's situation.

However, one thing that's different in the smartphone market is that Samsung has a quite significant share of the higher end market! Comparing the (unlocked) prices of some Samsung's flagship phones like Galaxy S and Note, it's quite surprising to find that they're even more expensive than the iPhone.

I guess this is what Apple needs to worry about. Just give Android the lower end market but the richer demographics? Apple cannot afford to lose it.

 

[adnbek]

So for every person who bought an iPhone, more than 6 people bought an Android phone.

That is staggering, considering that the iPhone is Apple's main cash cow.

When you consider it's one phone against the thousands of different models running Android (90% of which are junk), no.

Apple's PC division is doing pretty well and it's exactly the same situation in that industry, with Apple computers versus the thousands of laptops and desktops for sale.

There's no difference.

 

[jbennardo]

Market share is easier when you're giving away Android phones with purchase of a suit... or maybe a hair cut... or just any of the many BOGO promotions from various carriers.

http://betabeat.com/2012/11/jos-a-bank-would-like-to-buy-you-a-new-android-phone/

http://forums.androidcentral.com/an.../108524-supercuts-android-phone-giveaway.html

http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/2113/buy-one-get-one-free-with-the-sprint-galaxy-s4-deal.html

Yeah, some of those promotions are a few years old, but you get the picture.

 

[adnbek]

That tells me that they will kill to have an 80% marketshare, but since they can't, they come up with excuses like "we don't really want to win".
They don't want to win my a..!

They can't and they don't need to. It's similar to the PC industry. It's a small line of Apple computers versus the thousands of computers of different makes and models. Apple's PC division, with its tiny market share, is more successful financially than the top 1 and 2 (HP and Dell) in market share.

Apple has always gone after the "premium" market (which is inherently a fraction of the entire market). On the other hand, it's easy to capture market share if you sell products at every price point and it's just not Apple's strategy to do so. That may change with the "cheap" iPhone but their core market is the premium one.

 

[6264374]

android is even available on $100 devices.. so not a fair comparison with iOS

 

[adnbek]

Apple really didn't have the kind of share of total profit back then as it has today, and developers picked PC over Mac, despite all those PC being so cheap and made of inferior components....

Wrong. Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy so developers were cautious in supporting the Mac when OSX came along. And today? Well, Macs still has only a 10% marketshare worldwide but get massive developer support. Why do you think that is? Because even with its "niche" market, it's the most successful PC manufacturer financially and their products are recognized for being best in their class.

Marketshare is irrelevant. Apple has always been a "premium" company. The premium market is never going to dominate vs. the mass market. The only time Apple dominated was when there were no other alternative. They practically created the market for smartphones when the iPhone was released and same goes for tablets. Not hard to dominate a market you alone sell a product for.
Frankly, I see Apple's phones to follow the same pattern as their PC division now that the competition is this intense and will pretty much hold onto its niche market while the smartphone market overall is flooded with a massive amount of cheap smartphones that represent the large majority of worldwide sales.

Even the "premium" Android phones are a niche if you look at the overall Android space. Most of Android's share is dominated by the cheaper phones. Premium phones like the HTC One, GS4 and others represent but a tiny sliver in the overall Android space.

So people are freaking out and arguing over nothing. It's not a surprise that most of the developing world and those who can't afford an expensive phone are going to buy these cheap, junk phones like crazy. They're pretty much replacements to feature phones and premium phones like the iPhone, GS4 and others will always be niche products.

 

[SteaKnife]

android is even available on $100 devices.. so not a fair comparison with iOS

a iPhone 4s is 99 bucks on a 2 year right now..

 

[mosimann]

Give me an Iphone with a screen 4.5" or bigger and a Swype keyboard. I'll get rid of my Note 2 and never look back.

 

[linuxcooldude]

The problem Apple have is they are greedy. They charge massively over the odds for things. Take the imac for example. They charge twice the price for a ssd hard drive. They charge more like 3-4 times the price for memory upgrades. They are sitting on billions of pounds. Something tells me the profit margins are waaaaaay too high and this is why people are abandoning ship. Im leaving apple today actually , yes everything works nicely together but its not perfect and with the mac pro or high end imac the only option for me , i can build a PC for less than half with a better spec.

Greed!!!

I don't call it greed, I call it business. Like any business their goal is to make money.

Anyone can buy their own computer parts and assemble them together for a fraction of the price compared to a name brand computer. So its no surprise they would charge more for upgrades like many name brands do.

But Apple offers a superior build quality, stelar support and an ecosystem that is easy to use. Thats what you pay extra for. Or build it yourself and provide your own support.

 

[macs4nw]

No real surprise here. Google is sorta in the position with mobile devices that Microsoft was with PCs. It looks like Apple will then occupy the same position that they did with PCs. As long as they can maintain the profit margin, they do pretty well as a niche player.

Open versus closed system. It's Windows / V.s Mac OS all over again. That said, Apple has learned how to Be profitable having only a segment of the overall market, and will likely be fine as long as it doesn't start to alienate too many of their current users.

I share those views, and I might add, marketshare is a metric that's only important to shareholders, and to CEOs to a lesser extent, as a confirmation, they're taking the company in the right direction. As long as APPLE sticks to it's mission of building well thought-out, gorgeously-designed products of high quality, with industry-leading warranty coverage, I personally don't really care what their market position is.

There are always going to be people willing to pay more for better design, higher quality, etc. As long as APPLE can remain being a profitable company, that's willing to pour significant amounts in innovation and R&D, they're probably better off being the underdogs, they were a dozen or so years ago, when they were incidentally also attracting a lot less governmental scrutiny.

I'm not saying, it's not nice to be #1, but in those earlier years, it was always Steve's mantra to make the best products, period. Profits and sales numbers were always secondary to that. And that's the APPLE, many of us admire, and are rooting for.

 

[k995]

Wake me up when Apple has less than 80% of the total smartphone market profit share. . . that won't be for a long time yet.

Apple have learnt to sell less product but make much much more profit from it. Some samesung have not learnt. Heck I'd rather have iOS's 13% share. Cause that 13% is the lion's share of the profits.

Apple profit share is a liitle above 50% . It hasnt been 80 in years .

 

[gnryushi]

As a dev I'm only concerned about which store gives the highest payout and for me it's iTunes. Plus ease of development is far and away simpler for iOS than Android. In this instance Android market share means nothing to me.

 

[maxosx]

Give me an Iphone with a screen 4.5" or bigger and a Swype keyboard. I'll get rid of my Note 2 and never look back.

Sounds good, let's not forget to price it at least thirty percent higher than others so as to keep the cash cow happy.

 

[captain kaos]

This is what happens when you really only release a "new" phone every 2 years. The S upgrades are just upgrades they are not really a new phone to most people.

I agree. The majority of iphone buyers don't know if it was an iphone 4 or 4s. Geeks, apple fans do and will update if the bump to an S is a good one, but most people don't know the difference. So really in most peoples eyes apple has a new looking phone every 2 years, and this is what drives people to other phones.

 

[Glassed Silver]

No real surprise here. Google is sorta in the position with mobile devices that Microsoft was with PCs. It looks like Apple will then occupy the same position that they did with PCs. As long as they can maintain the profit margin, they do pretty well as a niche player.

Apple is best when in the niche player position.

Glassed Silver:mac

 

[k995]

Marketshare is irrelevant. Apple has always been a "premium" company. The premium market is never going to dominate vs. the mass market.

Marketshare is not irrelevant when you sell an eco system . The system has to be atractive and that means lots of people invested in it.

The only time Apple dominated was when there were no other alternative. They practically created the market for smartphones when the iPhone was released and same goes for tablets. Not hard to dominate a market you alone sell a product for.

Thats BS, the market was there apple released the best product on it by far and captured the market share. Now at best apple product are among the best and that get reflected in sales.

Frankly, I see Apple's phones to follow the same pattern as their PC division now that the competition is this intense and will pretty much hold onto its niche market while the smartphone market overall is flooded with a massive amount of cheap smartphones that represent the large majority of worldwide sales.

And the higher end wll continue to outsell apple, so its a pointless comparison.


Apple cant afford to go back to the PC vs mac days. It was a niche company with barely any influence and barely any profit . People seem to forget up until 2003 apple barely made ANY profit, hell they posted a loss for 2001 .

This rise in profit only happened in consumer market with its ipod breaking trough.

 

[throAU]

According to those figures, year on year shipments for apple in terms of units sold are up 20%.

They were plenty profitable before, who cares what the rest of the market is doing, and how many dumb phones are sold with android in asia to the massive chinese market?

The market is big enough for plenty of competitors.

These figures are more an indication of non-smartphone owners (i.e., not in the market last year) upgrading to a cheap android device (purely become no one builds dumb phones any more) than anything else.

 

[haruhiko]

"Smartphone" means most of the phones now. A few years ago (when Apple had the majority of "smartphone" market share) if we compare Apple vs. the whole mobile phone industry the share will even be lower than now

 

[AppleScruff1]

Why does a consumer care about market share? I don't think you have explained that one either.

According to you, there is nothing the average consumer cares about other than price. We know that Android is totally going to win that game.

By the way... do consumers care about quality?

I don't care about market share or how much profit a company makes as long as they support and service their products. I have never seen anywhere but here where people crow about how much profit a company makes as being the most important indicator. Other than Apple consumers, most people would be upset with a company making a huge profit that is heads above the industry norm. Many here seem to delight that Apple makes so much money. If they are stockholders, understood. Yet when any other company raises their prices or makes a huge profit, they are called thieves and taking advantage of people. Go figure.

Yes, many consumers care about quality.

----------

People buy an Android phone because it's cheap; people who do, don't really have any idea about what Android is.

People buy an iPhone because they want it.

I dunno. I'd rather be in the second group.

What does that have to do with with my post?

----------

Market share is easier when you're giving away Android phones with purchase of a suit... or maybe a hair cut... or just any of the many BOGO promotions from various carriers.

http://betabeat.com/2012/11/jos-a-bank-would-like-to-buy-you-a-new-android-phone/

http://forums.androidcentral.com/an.../108524-supercuts-android-phone-giveaway.html

http://www.nextpowerup.com/news/2113/buy-one-get-one-free-with-the-sprint-galaxy-s4-deal.html

Yeah, some of those promotions are a few years old, but you get the picture.

What about the free iPhone's from American carriers?

 

[Arfdog]

Apple is dying!

More fear-mongering. Apple is still GAINING in sales, because the smartphone market is still growing. But they are not gaining as fast as Android. Thus they have a smaller and smaller share of a vastly expanding product market.

They are not "losing ground", as this foolish article reads, ie people aren't switching from iOS to Android in droves. But yes more people are buying smartphones and they are more likely to buy an Android because the OS is free, therefore more widespread.

Apple isn't "dying". It's just growing slower than others.

 

[haruhiko]

What about the free iPhone's from American carriers?

I think "free (on contract)" is not and never a factor. iPhones have been free on contract (the 16GB version) since the 3GS era in my country (Hong Kong). It didn't stop Android (especially Samsung) from advancing here, especially since the iPhone 4S era. And for unlocked price, the Samsung Galaxy/Note phones are even more expensive than iPhones. From my anecdotal experience, people told me that they like Samsung because "the screen is bigger".

 

[FuFuFu]

Apple will not open, this strategy is only good as long as the hardware is not powerful and the optimization pays off for the customer here (Android can not perform in this matter).
An operating system is only as strong as the number of its users.

 

[kis]

You're kidding, right? Apple's PC division alone would be in the Fortune 500 even with their niche 10% market share and more profitable than both HP and Dell that hold the top #1 and #2 in market share.

Except that they don't have a 10% marketshare - they're somewhere between 5 and 7%, depending on who does the statistics.

----------

...I know no one with an android phone. I personally hate android devices. I would rather use BB. Android offers nothing for me personally that I need and can't get on the iOS. These numbers seem fishy.

I switched from an iPhone 5 to a Galaxy S4 and then to a Lumia 920. I'm ok with iOS but find it rather boring. What I'm not ok with is the screen-size of the iPhone 5 and the fact that it falls apart if you drop it from 20cm. I find Android to be ok but still slightly messy. What I dislike most about it is the whole Google-part. In a world that's dominated by PRISM and other snooping tools, I think Google is the one company you definitely don't want to give your data to.

I can honestly say that of all my friends and my family members, only one person has an iPhone (an ancient iPhone 4). I also teach teenagers in a public school - around 2-3 years ago I'd say 9 out of 10 phones they were pestering me with were iPhones. Today it's probably about 1-2 out of 10 - and I live in a country were Apple's marketshare has always been significantly higher than in the US.

----------

Comments like this make me understand much better now that MR has more non-Apple users that register.

Why - if you're an Apple user, you automatically have to like its CEO? I love my rMBP but Cook? Come on.

 

[robertosh]

Mission accomplished Google! and now?

 

[rabidz7]

I cannot wait to see the day when all closed source operating systems are crushed. But given enough time, freedom will always prevail. Apple needs to cut the iCrap out and put building the absolute fastest computers available back in the focus like it was in the PowerPC days.