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Apple Overtakes Research in Motion in U.S. Smartphone Usage Share

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Apr 12, 2001
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comscore_apr11_smartphones.jpg

comScore today released the results of its April survey of mobile phone usage in the United States, finding that Apple has nudged past Research in Motion to claim the second spot among smartphone platforms behind Android. According to the data, Android continues to widen its lead and now holds 36.4% of the market, while Apple's iOS holds 26.0% and Research in Motion's BlackBerry operating system has slipped to 25.7%.

comscore_apr11_phones.jpg

When looking at mobile phone manufacturers overall, Apple is now the fourth most-popular vendor with 8.3% of the market, once again barely beating out Research in Motion.

comScore's surveys of over 30,000 mobile phone subscribers examine installed user base rather than quarterly sales as with many other sources. Consequently, comScore's data examines a slightly different metric that is slower to respond to shifts in sales trends. Apple passed Research in Motion in quarterly U.S. shipments late last year, but the BlackBerry maker's historical lead had enabled it to hold off Apple in installed user base share until recently.

Article Link: Apple Overtakes Research in Motion in U.S. Smartphone Usage Share
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/06/03/apple-overtakes-research-in-motion-in-u-s-smartphone-usage-share/
I made the mistake one time of thinking I would enjoy a BlackBerry more than an iPhone. Boy was I wrong.
 
I don't ever believe this because next week you will hear that Android will have more market share and blah blah blah it's always different.
In my mind the iPhone is THE BEST smart phone.
 
TC400 said:
I don't ever believe this because next week you will hear that Android will have more market share and blah blah blah it's always different.
In my mind the iPhone is THE BEST smart phone.
Click to expand...

I agree, but iOS is not the best mobile operating system.
 
Interesting. And Nielson found during that same quarter that Android's U.S. share dropped from March to April. I realize there are different companies doing the measuring, and in this case Nielson is looking month-to-month instead of by quarter, so we'll have to see what happens the rest of the year. But I would not be surprised to see Android's growth soon slow if not stop.

Think about why Android suddenly gained popularity. Was there a groundswell of demand from average consumers for Android? Not really. Only geeks knew about Android. The average phone buyer goes into a shop and picks a phone based on what's available.

So what caused the very rapid ascent of Android over the last year or so? It's quite simple: All of the also-ran phone manufacturers switched from WinMobile or Symbian or whatever OS to the free Android OS. When you shift all of the other guys into one big Android slice, Android's market share jumps immediately. That is precisely what happened.

But what happens when they have already jumped to Android? Right. Market share levels off. There simply isn't a big consumer-led demand for Android. Again, the geeks demand it, but the average person barely knows what their phone runs.

This was simply a supply-side shift of the also-rans into a single segment of the pie. The shift is over. Thus the share level is starting to become static. No surprise. This is precisely what you would expect to see from a supply-side, rather than a demand-side, situation.

So look for a plateau stage next, and then the stage that follows is a decline in market share for Android as all those also-rans start to consolidate or drop out of the market because they cannot sufficiently differentiate from their me-too competition. Again, this won't be a surprise. Except among the Android supporters who think the whole world is yelling for Android.
 
The smart phone numbers are more important from an investors point of view.

The iphone basically destroyed Nokia and now Android phones are finishing the job. For some reason the poor performance of Nokia stock is spilling over onto RIM. Although there have been stories about their poor performance too. I guess since they have both had negative stories, investors back of both if they back off one.
 
Daayyyyyaaaammm!!!! Android is KILLING IT!

My HTC G2 with Android 2.3 craps all over an iPhone. HAHA
 
TC400 said:
I don't ever believe this because next week you will hear that Android will have more market share and blah blah blah it's always different.
Click to expand...

Did you look at the graphs in the summary ? We don't really have to wait to next week to hear about Android having more market share. ;)
 
TC400 said:
I don't ever believe this because next week you will hear that Android will have more market share and blah blah blah it's always different.
In my mind the iPhone is THE BEST smart phone.
Click to expand...

I agree and I love my iPhone.

But: Android also has a few great ones, but to many garbage ones and that blurs the whole Android Picture.
 
Last edited:
This is very shocking and amazing and super and all, but the real battle of paradigms is between Android and iOS. :rolleyes:
 
Sounds like a resounding win for Android. Google increase in marketshare was 400% greater than was the increase for Apple.
 
ten-oak-druid said:
The smart phone numbers are more important from an investors point of view.

The iphone basically destroyed Nokia and now Android phones are finishing the job. For some reason the poor performance of Nokia stock is spilling over onto RIM. Although there have been stories about their poor performance too. I guess since they have both had negative stories, investors back of both if they back off one.
Click to expand...
Nokia was never really a player in the US. Which is what the graphs are showing...
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Whackberry
 
Full of Win said:
Sounds like a resounding win for Android. Google increase in marketshare was 400% greater than was the increase for Apple.
Click to expand...

But "losing" isn't so bad for a device vendor that is increasing both market share and total sales, as well as making more profit than any of the vendors selling the resounding "winners" devices.
 
0815 said:
The interesting news is that MS is still loosing market share .... Are the any number how much of the MS numbers are WinMob7 ?
Click to expand...

Let's see, Ballmer has one, but he only uses it as a phone. Gates was given one, but he hasn't activated it yet, and then the employees were all given one that they pretend to use when at work. Hmm, that's about it.;)
 
All this information tells me is that the smart phone market is heading to Google versus Apple just like the PC market is Apple versus Microsoft. In both PCs and smart phones there are some smaller players, but for the most part that is where things are headed.
 
juicedropsdeuce said:
This is very shocking and amazing and super and all, but the real battle of paradigms is between Android and iOS. :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

And just like the PC wars Apple makes a great #2. I don't mean this as as slam either but having someone above them in marketshare keeps them hungry and innovating.
 
NebulaClash said:
Interesting. And Nielson found during that same quarter that Android's U.S. share dropped from March to April. I realize there are different companies doing the measuring, and in this case Nielson is looking month-to-month instead of by quarter, so we'll have to see what happens the rest of the year. But I would not be surprised to see Android's growth soon slow if not stop.

Think about why Android suddenly gained popularity. Was there a groundswell of demand from average consumers for Android? Not really. Only geeks knew about Android. The average phone buyer goes into a shop and picks a phone based on what's available.

So what caused the very rapid ascent of Android over the last year or so? It's quite simple: All of the also-ran phone manufacturers switched from WinMobile or Symbian or whatever OS to the free Android OS. When you shift all of the other guys into one big Android slice, Android's market share jumps immediately. That is precisely what happened.

But what happens when they have already jumped to Android? Right. Market share levels off. There simply isn't a big consumer-led demand for Android. Again, the geeks demand it, but the average person barely knows what their phone runs.

This was simply a supply-side shift of the also-rans into a single segment of the pie. The shift is over. Thus the share level is starting to become static. No surprise. This is precisely what you would expect to see from a supply-side, rather than a demand-side, situation.

So look for a plateau stage next, and then the stage that follows is a decline in market share for Android as all those also-rans start to consolidate or drop out of the market because they cannot sufficiently differentiate from their me-too competition. Again, this won't be a surprise. Except among the Android supporters who think the whole world is yelling for Android.
Click to expand...

That's an interesting post. I would have also added that the also-rans will find themselves split more and more between Android and Windows, decreasing the Android share even more, but it seems I'd be wrong. Is windows really doing that badly?
 
RIM is still doing very well. If Apple had come out with the Blackberry after RIM's had come up with the iPhone then Apple wouldn't even have 1% of the market. The ability that RIM has to sell Blackberry phones against better phones is amazing.
 
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