The highlight of comScore's report is Android passing 50% of installed smartphone user base for the first time, grabbing 50.1% of the market during the three-month period of December through February. That marks a gain of 3.2 percentage points since the previous three-month period and a gain of 17 percentage points over the past year. But Apple's iPhone has also seen strong performance, gaining 1.5 percentage points over the previous period and 5 percentage point year-over-year to hit 30.2% of the market.
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Well, it's not good news for Apple.
In the overall market of third-runner defectors, Google is picking up more share than Apple. AND, that share is coming to Google at a faster rate than the existing market share (November 2011) would indicate.
In other words, Google is ahead in market share, and is increasing their relative dominance. Mathematically, the Google:Apple ratio increased by 2%.
Of course, it's good news for Apple that it is increasing market share. Certainly better than declining market share. But if you care about the overall number of Google devices relative to the overall number of Apple devices there is a dark cloud in the middle of that silver lining.
Of course, IMHO this particular horse race is meaningless. I don't care how many other people have the same phone as me; I care that Apple is able to keep advancing the state of the phone, that the app market for the phone is vibrant, and that as a result I can buy and run quality apps on today's phone and know that my investment will carry over to my next phone.
Developers care about market share, but only indirectly. What they REALLY care about is how much money their app can make, which is a product not just of how many people are out there with a compatible device but also of how much money they are willing to spend and how much competition the app will face for those dollars. Raw marketshare feeds into those numbers, but without more data it is meaningless to developers.
Apple cares about marketshare also only indirectly. What they REALLY care about is how much money they can make with an updated version of the phone, which is a product of not just how many people are buying the current version (although that obviously helps keep the lights on) but of how satisfied they are, how well they view that purchase, how many secondary purchases (peripherals, apps) they make, and how much money with which frequency they are willing to spend on their next phone. Again, raw marketshare feeds into those numbers, but again it is meaningless to Apple.
So, I end up wondering: to whom is this data interesting? Seems to be nothing more than the Apple-Google horse-race aficionados, lounging around the track with mint juleps in hand blathering on about how their horse is going to steal the show.
