iOS and Android Combined for Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter

[rdlink]

Developers make 4x from iOS apps vs. Android. The vast majority of people choosing* Android don't spend a dime on apps nor services.

Apple's iOS strategy is no different from the Mac's: skim the customers creme, enjoy the high margins and spend more on customer service. You can't beat iOS.

*EDIT: they don't actually "choose": they pick the lowest priced item, and it's not an iPhone.

Let's not forget that often times the salesperson in the cell carrier store chooses it for them. It's no secret that cell carriers would really like for the iPhone to go away if they could make it. Androids make them more money, and give them more control over what apps are forced on the users.

 

[Tech198]

That Blackberry just keeps on going down...

Can't they take a hint? I guess they still hope people will buy Backberry. but they must no after this time,they won't get up to Android figures..

 

[rdlink]

I just bought a windows phone. Think different, buy different!

Dear Manderby,

Thank you for being our 100th customer this year. My kids are really enjoying the Happy Meal toy that I bought them with the profits from your phone. We look forward to your continued support.

Very Truly Yours,

Satya
[doublepost=1471559166][/doublepost]

Who remembers?

If they ever do a remake of Young Frankenstein Balmer can take over for Peter Boyle.

 

[a.gomez]

The total denial of some people here is breathtaking. Yeah, nobody buys s7, note7, 6P, G5. The Honor 8 sucks because it does not cost 650 dollars with a 39% Profit margin. Oh yeah, the appstore makes more money selling videogames... I mean that proves Android is inferior to iOS.

What nonsense - it is at 86% because the android market has solutions from top to bottom. From low end to midrange to high end - and android right now is a solid OS for what most will do with a phone.

Love how people just ignore that last quarter there was everything from Buy one get one free on iphone 6s/plus to getting an iphone SE free on contract. And it didnt help at all.

By this idiotic mentality, all microsoft needs to do is sell windows phones at below 200 and they will get 80% of the market. Oh wait they already did that.

My coworker does not have an S7 because he cant afford an iphone 6... Just like the state of Android had nothing to do with my girl having an SE. Just random self-serving generalisations

 

[MH01]

The perfect time to dump the 3.5mm jack and expect the users to upgrade to a new phone and new set of headphones / adapters.

Just to top it off, raise the price of the iPhone globally to reflect the strength of the US dollar and start coming up with excuses why iPhone sales are declining while android goes up.

I'm genuinely interested how much the iPhone 7 will go up in price in Europe / UK

 

[cdmoore74]

The only company with more market share than Apple is Samsung.

That makes Apple the #2 smartphone manufacturer in the world.

Or are you doing that thing where you combine hundreds of non-related Android OEMs together to make one giant fictional company?

I'm gonna say this again: Apple is the #2 smartphone manufacturer in the world. And I'll also add that they were able to achieve this while selling very expensive phones. That makes their position even more impressive.

It's certainly not "terrible"



Market share is simply the percentage of sales over a period of time... like a quarter.

What you're forgetting is that there are over 600 million iPhones out in the world... and 250 million iPads. And those users tend to spend a lot of money on apps.

That's what developers are looking at... not the quarterly percentage.

The iPhone has never had a majority of worldwide smartphone market share ... and yet developers keep making apps.

I wonder why that is.

There has to be a point when market share accounts for something. If Apple continues down this path why would a developer focus on a losing platform? If the iPhone 6SE turns out to be a dud (by Apples standards) and even more people flip to Android your basically making it more appealing to develop to Android.
If we were getting a completely new iPhone the thought of Android wouldn't be in my mind.

 

[BrianKonarsMac]

Crazy how quickly Windows phone has just died completely. Microsoft really has seemed to have given up.

I was thinking the same thing... they appear to have just conceded the war interestingly. That's a lot of lost money invested and they killed Nokia in the process.

Apple's AppStore sells 90% more than Google's.

People who buy Androids are mostly the people who just want to have a touch smartphone "like the other people", and keep themselves to the preinstalled apps, or pirating games off google.

Your statement aligns closely with my experience in the app markets. iOS vastly outperforms Google in terms of revenue generation and I suspect this has a lot to do with the demographics of each market as you alluded to.

 

[MH01]

Dear Manderby,

Thank you for being our 100th customer this year. My kids are really enjoying the Happy Meal toy that I bought them with the profits from your phone. We look forward to your continued support.

Very Truly Yours,

Satya
[doublepost=1471559166][/doublepost]

If they ever do a remake of Young Frankenstein Balmer can take over for Peter Boyle.

Funny, cause the same jokes were made at apple users in the past, shows what happens when you innovate and have a vision

ironically apple has become the Sony / Microsoft of the past.....perched on top, lazy and milking the existing product range . Maybe once the current execs retire, apple might take some risks again, until such time, they are going to milk the existing product range as much as possible for a fat payout . The only innovation in recent years seems to have been thier organised lunches....it's like they think they are celebrities instead of apple execs leading product development. Ives without jobs ..... Shows were the genius was

 

[simonmet]

Can someone tell me what the point of MS buying Nokia was then?

Oh and iPhone is destined to tank further towards 10%. Nothing wrong with that, except TC will keep talking up AI or leak information about how "insanely great" iPhone 8 will be.

 

[paul4339]

...
Android remained the world's most widely used smartphone operating system with 86.2% market share in the second quarter, up from 82.2% a year ago, while iOS dropped to 12.9% market share from 14.6% in the year-ago period. ...

You are confusing quarterly sales with overall devices being used. Overall smartphones used are all the active smartphones in the world (which is all those sold from previous quarters but have not been retired/decommissioned)... which is different than Q2 worldwide sales.

Android leads in both used and so, but the sentence should really be: "Android remains the most widely sold smartphone OS with an 86.2% share in the second quarter ... "

.

 

[Mildredop]

no people are saying apple iphones are declining. and the records reflect that.

I think you'll find a lot of people are saying iPhones are declining. And I'd argue the records show they are.

 

[Kabeyun]

If they ever do a remake of Young Frankenstein Balmer can take over for Peter Boyle.

"Puttin' on the riiiiiiiiiitz!"

 

[Omega Mac]

Ok, what I really want to know is what model sells the best. Not what OS.

2014 wiki indicates - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_mobile_phones#2014

• Samsung Galaxy All variant, 520 million sold[14]
• Apple all variants, 169.2 million sold[15]

 

[captain cadet]

Crazy how quickly Windows phone has just died completely. Microsoft really has seemed to have given up.

Windows phone got a fair big of success (up to 5%) in 2012/2013 and then burnt off pretty quick when it became apparent that apps like snapchat weren't interested in launching on windows. Then people thought they were cool new platform with new apps like Facebook and Twitter coming but it stopped there. People quickly realised that they weren't going to get many more apps and when it came around for people to get new phones in 2 years (2014/2015) they saw that iOS and

Android had much better apps and more and then didn't really look at Windows phone: hence the quick decline. I do apps development and around 2014/2015 MS did a huge push to get us to make apps for them which most of us didn't pick up due to the low share and the commitment to develop in .net and spend £500 in tools (iOS is £80 a year and its a swallow but there is a huge share behind it unlike visual studios).
The last few emails I had was a push behind Universal Windows Apps (UWA) as they work on Windows 10 and Xbox and Windows Phone but a large part of the API documentation (The bible of coding in a language - it tells you how it all works) has Windows Phone in the back and we have to actually go and download Windows Phone content from the site while Android and iOS (through xarmari if I spelt that right) came with VS.

I know someone who works in Microsoft and he has the work phone (windows phone duh) and a separate phone (iPhone) and a lot of people have it. Just look at the apps from Microsoft on iOS and Windows Phone - iOS beats it flat down.

Microsoft kinda knows windows phone is dead, but they just dont want to kill it. As my friend said "It's low on their priority and they know its more of a flop than Windows Vista and Surface RT combined but it kill them to kill it as some High end executives are dreaming it bounce back.

 

[techwhiz]

Android has come a long away.

I believe this year will be the 1st year I buy an Android phone
because of the lack of innovation from Apple and the iPhone 7.

Uh and Android has innovation?
Let's be real here. If I describe to you a ~5"" phone with fingerprint sensor, NFC, GPS, multiple cores, etc...
You can't tell if I described an iPhone or Android.

It's all about packaging and marketing. We've come to the place where phone hardware pretty much all looks the same.
Yeah Apple has an A9 or A10 but Qualcomm has the Snapdragon 820/821. It's all ARM processors.

There is no real innovation to be had in the phone space by ANYBODY.
Buy what you like. Buy because you like the industrial design, etc. Buy because there is an app you must have.
But don't buy a different phone because you perceive a lack of innovation.

 

[AppleScruff1]

People who buy Androids are mostly the people who just want to have a touch smartphone "like the other people", and keep themselves to the preinstalled apps, or pirating games off google.

Any links to support that?

 

[techwhiz]

Staggering numbers.

Time for a new OS. Android sucks. iOS sucks.

It'd be nice to get a linux based phone, something with less crap filling the screen, without a billion notifications, crap crap crap...

I use my Phone, Messages, Music, Mail, Safari, and a few banking apps. I think the industry is way too nonsensical. How bored ARE humans, really? I am definitely not their target audience... so who is there to be my target manufacturer?

Sigh. First world problems.

You do realize that Android is Linux based and iOS is a BSD derivative from Darwin?
What you are asking for is a new GUI and framework.

 

[Zirel]

Any links to support that?

https://www.statista.com/chart/4954/smartphone-average-selling-prices/

 

[AppleScruff1]

https://www.statista.com/chart/4954/smartphone-average-selling-prices/

Your post didn't mention anything about price. Where are the links supporting the piracy, having a smartphone like "the other people" and keeping themselves to pre-installed apps?

 

[techwhiz]

Are you a Mac user that uses a Samsung phone? I'm interested in what that experience is like since you can't sync with iTunes or iCloud.

If you're neither a Mac user or an iOS user, why are you on Mac Rumors?

Everyone I know with an Android phone bought one because of price.

iTunes works just fine, you just need Google's Music Manager.
Not sure about the other person but I own Macs and iPads, no iPhone.
I posted just to dispel the belief that people use Android because of price only.
We have three smartphones in my house and none of them iPhone.
None were bought based on price. All were purchased based on features.
We currently have a Nexus 6P, Samsung S6 and and LG G3.
Other than the Nexus the others were purchased partly for Qi wireless charging.
My Nexus 6P was bought because I want to own my phone and not have anyone, like the manufacturer or carrier tell me what I can and can't do with my phone.

So I'm not here to bash Apple but I do like my Nexus 6P.

 

[kdarling]

Uh and Android has innovation?
Let's be real here. If I describe to you a ~5"" phone with fingerprint sensor, NFC, GPS, multiple cores, etc...
You can't tell if I described an iPhone or Android.

OTOH, if you describe to him a phone with iris scanner, active pen, quick charging and quad HD AMOLED screen... what phone are you talking about?

--

As for all the posts about sales...

One of the whole points of being an Apple fan, used to be not caring about market share or profit. The fun was in the journey, not how much money the mothership made.

 

[mi7chy]

Who the F still writes BASIC anyway?

He didn't wrote AppleSoft BASIC, Steve Wozniak wrote AppleSoft BASIC, he crated the NutSo BASIC, Microsoft created another BASIC that was the best.

The App is so good, that he doesn't even ask a dollar for it!

http://omz-software.com/pythonista/

Here's a real IDE for iOS, with a real language: Python

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/continuous-.net-c-and-f-ide/id1095213378?mt=8

Here's another real IDE for iOS, with another real language: C#

http://www.apple.com/swift/playgrounds/

And here, is Apple's Swift "mini-IDE" for iPad, to learn programming.

This leaves Android completely in the dust!

SpaceX and Tesla, for example, are primarily C++ and C on Linux so when younger students are ready to progress beyond BASIC they're covered under Android which uses Linux as a foundation and covered by Termux for all the installable C++, C, vi, Git, Python, etc. packages. Everything is still free and you can even use a mouse which is a necessity along with keyboard for development.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux

[doublepost=1471565248][/doublepost]

Can someone tell me what the point of MS buying Nokia was then?

Don't count MS out since everyone is waiting for the Surface Phone which could potentially replace the Surface Pro that makes the iPad Pro obsolete. The true single device that replaces everything and the time is ripe with Intel moving to 10nm.

 

[Zirel]

SpaceX and Tesla, for example, are primarily C++ and C on Linux so when younger students are ready to progress beyond BASIC they're covered under Android which uses Linux as a foundation and covered by Termux for all the installable C++, C, vi, Git, Python, etc. packages. Everything is still free and you can even use a mouse which is a necessity along with keyboard for development.

It's not designed for touch. It's not a real Android App.

And nobody starts with BASIC anymore, it's a dead language.
[doublepost=1471565457][/doublepost]

Your post didn't mention anything about price. Where are the links supporting the piracy, having a smartphone like "the other people" and keeping themselves to pre-installed apps?

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/piracy-android-how-bad-is-it-really/

Happy now?

 

[CE3]

The beginning of post-ios

Not even close, more like the beginning of a decline in smartphone sales across the board. It happened to PCs and it'll happen to smartphones, too.

 

[MrX8503]

Nope, Android is now first choice for App developers. One by one, supposed advantages of iphone keeps falling down before Android dominance. Web traffic, app store revenue, all used to be iphone first, now is dominated by Android. The way Apple is peddling iphone only to up market, iphone has no chance against Android.

https://adtmag.com/articles/2016/08/05/android-ios-mindshare.aspx
https://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2016/08/android-first-new-normal

How many of those apps are premium? The app war is far from being over. Another topic to note is app quality. iPhone app quality is top notch. Look at hangouts for iPhone.

That's what happens when you peek outside a walled garden my friend. You discover a whole new world. Enjoy the ride...

I was outside the walled garden. I couldn't get over the wall fast enough to get into the garden.