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Apple Sneaks Up on Motorola in Mobile Phone Sales, Android Surges Past iOS
- Thread starter MacRumors
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NebulaClash
macrumors 68000
Uh, slow down everyone. Does it matter that Nokia has the #1 spot and has had that spot in the past? No. We never cared.
So if Android (in total) moves ahead of just the iPhone by itself, why would that matter?
Apple's goal was never to be #1 in phone sales. Just to carve out a significant and profitable chunk of the market. The phone market is far too big for any one company to take it over. It will always be fragmented. The key is to pick up a big fragment. Apple has done that. Seems as if the Android combined market has done it too. Everyone wins.
So if Android (in total) moves ahead of just the iPhone by itself, why would that matter?
Apple's goal was never to be #1 in phone sales. Just to carve out a significant and profitable chunk of the market. The phone market is far too big for any one company to take it over. It will always be fragmented. The key is to pick up a big fragment. Apple has done that. Seems as if the Android combined market has done it too. Everyone wins.
more like their crazy app store policies. with android market share growing a lot of devs are already releasing on android first or releasing new features of apps on android first.
Android is clearly the winner here as far as marketshare, but apple is king when profits are concerned.
Figure the number a few years from now. Nokia continues to lose share, its MeeGo OS is going to be a failure in the smartphone arena. BB will continue to have corporate customers, but will continue to lose the consumer market. Andoid (with dozens of vendors) will continue to rise. Apple will diversify to different carriers, but will stagnate in the overall marketshare arena.
Is this a problem? Probably not. Apple makes money on every stage of the game... hardware, wireless / data revenue, iTunes, App Store, licensing "made for iPhone", accessories, iAds, etc. Google currently gives its OS away... in the future they may charge for it, but even then it is a once only sale. Sure, they make money in search and ads, but they have nowhere near the revenue stream of the iPhone ecosystem.
So apple has a future of 15-20% of the market. Great. They will continue to make money hand over fist, continue to please their shareholders, and continue to innovate and bring new products to market. Google will do great, but they will not make anywhere near the revenue from Android that apple will.
MS hopefully will make some headway with WM7... I'd hate to only have 2 viable OS choices in the mobile platform.
Figure the number a few years from now. Nokia continues to lose share, its MeeGo OS is going to be a failure in the smartphone arena. BB will continue to have corporate customers, but will continue to lose the consumer market. Andoid (with dozens of vendors) will continue to rise. Apple will diversify to different carriers, but will stagnate in the overall marketshare arena.
Is this a problem? Probably not. Apple makes money on every stage of the game... hardware, wireless / data revenue, iTunes, App Store, licensing "made for iPhone", accessories, iAds, etc. Google currently gives its OS away... in the future they may charge for it, but even then it is a once only sale. Sure, they make money in search and ads, but they have nowhere near the revenue stream of the iPhone ecosystem.
So apple has a future of 15-20% of the market. Great. They will continue to make money hand over fist, continue to please their shareholders, and continue to innovate and bring new products to market. Google will do great, but they will not make anywhere near the revenue from Android that apple will.
MS hopefully will make some headway with WM7... I'd hate to only have 2 viable OS choices in the mobile platform.
Mattie Num Nums
macrumors 68030
My department here at work is about 75% Android users. We have 3 iPhone users (I just switched to Android) and the of the 3 iPhones 2 are switching to Androids in the next week or two. Company wide its a good mix of iPhone and Blackberry but with Android 2.2 released and our company supporting Android now the demand has sky rocketed.
kalsta
macrumors 68000
As it happens, I hadn't noticed anyone with an Android phone until yesterday. A work colleague just got one (she walked into the store expecting to get an iPhone I think, but that's sales people for ya!) Anyway, she is pretty happy with it and was showing it off. We were comparing notes, you know
'Oh, my phone does this
', 'Yeah, so does mine
', and that's pretty much how it went. Conclusion: They're both amazing devices. Pick one. Enjoy it.
As for me, well I'm waiting for iPhone 5. 🙂
As for me, well I'm waiting for iPhone 5. 🙂
Uh oh Androids taking over iOS lol.
This may sound bad at first, but I bet Steve will improve iOS/iPhone market share 🙂 Which is obviously good 😉
iPhone is on multiple carriers in the UK. O2/Orange/Vodafone/T-Mobile/Tesco/GiffGaff. Only AT&T in america. Bring it to Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint (and whatever other carriers are there!) Do away with the AT&T exclusivity (another + is that it'll help their network). Doing that will improve iPhone market share.
iOS will need to be improved. I don't know how, I've never used an android phone. I'm happy with iOS, but I'm happy with new improvements 🙂
iPhone 5 and iOS 5.0, I cant wait 🙂
Let's hope Steve puts iOS two steps ahead 🙂
This may sound bad at first, but I bet Steve will improve iOS/iPhone market share 🙂 Which is obviously good 😉
iPhone is on multiple carriers in the UK. O2/Orange/Vodafone/T-Mobile/Tesco/GiffGaff. Only AT&T in america. Bring it to Verizon/T-Mobile/Sprint (and whatever other carriers are there!) Do away with the AT&T exclusivity (another + is that it'll help their network). Doing that will improve iPhone market share.
iOS will need to be improved. I don't know how, I've never used an android phone. I'm happy with iOS, but I'm happy with new improvements 🙂
iPhone 5 and iOS 5.0, I cant wait 🙂
Let's hope Steve puts iOS two steps ahead 🙂
Mattie Num Nums
macrumors 68030
Exactly. They both are great phones. They both serve different purposes. The Android is for those that really want the total experience and the iPhone is for those that want the total APPLE experience.
O-K
Xian Zhu Xuande
macrumors 6502a
Fans who like to look at large marketshare numbers?
Android is going to keep on growing at a great rate specifically because it can appear in everything from top-tier to (looks like this is going to be increasingly the case) low-end smartphones. Helps to have all the odd-balls in places like China, too. People are comparing an OEM OS to Apple's lone high-end phone line, and nobody should be surprised by this result.
The real numbers—the ones which are meaningful to developers, to hardware producers, to google, and to users in terms of actual user experience, are not tied directly into marketshare, especially when such a massive part of that market can't even participate in paid apps and other key fundamentals.
hitekalex
macrumors 68000
Right.. The locked down ecosystem with draconian App Store policies is what will spell the ultimate demise of iPhone. Or perhaps if "demise" is too strong of a word - relegation to niche status.
Wow. Even though the iPhone4 had yet another sales record (with over 1.7 million in 3 days), the iPhone was still outsold by Android by over 2 million. Not bad for Android.
7o7munoz7o7
macrumors regular
Finally, someone on the forums that gets what is really going on. Apple has NO interest in market share dominance as long as their share is sufficient share to maintain a developer community, and, from that BUSINESS perspective, they have no worries with iPod, iPhone, iPad and future products. IMO Apple has now WON the desktop war as well. They have captured the profitable sectors of the desktop/laptop sector and have established a secure developer community to maintain that dominance. This is why they are larger than MS in market cap and cash-on-hand and quickly approaching them in net profits.
Great, another whole front-page article where the comments will be full of Android fanboiz jizzing all over themselves because their object of lust managed to outsell a phone that everybody knew was about to be updated (3 days before the end of Q2, ultimately).
Hopefully we'll get the nets installed around their houses before the Q3 results come out, or it'll be messy...
Hopefully we'll get the nets installed around their houses before the Q3 results come out, or it'll be messy...
Stupid is as Stupid Buys
There are more stupid people in the world, than non-stupid people. Therefore, if a thing is marketed enough, stupid people will buy it. Capitalism in no way guarantees victory for a superior product.
There are more stupid people in the world, than non-stupid people. Therefore, if a thing is marketed enough, stupid people will buy it. Capitalism in no way guarantees victory for a superior product.
macsmurf
macrumors 65816
Not really. Apple will probably adjust and hopefully open up a bit. They might even back down on their ban of programming languages other than Obj C etc.
That, of course, is a good thing for developers.
bytethese
macrumors 68030
62 silver dollars...
Exactly what I think of when I read comparisons like this. of COURSE Symbian and Android have more market share, there are MANy different manufacturers who make hardware, and use that OS. A more fair comparison would be Apple/iOS to RIM/Blackberry or any other manufacturer who only makes 1 set of hardware to run their OS.
I guess the question is "Why" are they switching? I see the opposite happening at our company.
As others have noted, it is not so much about the user interface as it is about the availability of different carriers. That is all it is for me. I would much rather use an iPhone any day. I just refuse AT&T.