iPhone Predicted to Surpass Android Market Share by 2015

[applesith]

Your co-worker might hate the GS4 but do they like their time machine?

/trying too hard

I meant S3

----------

Galaxy S4? You probably meant to say Galaxy S5.

A typical fanboy story who knows nothing besides his iPhone.

Liar

*S3. honest mistake. take a chill pill

 

[hspace]

You DO realize the group of us on here who drool over OS updates, complain about how stagnant iOS has become and argue about how useful a widget is are a VERY small minority right? The general public has no idea what version of iOS or Android their phone is on, obsess over widgets and custom launchers and all that stuff. The vast majority of iPhone users like it because of simple things like iMessage, integration with iTunes or just because they like the earbuds. They arent sitting their stressing because they dont have widgets or power control access to quickly turn on their bluetooth. They certainly arent going to switch to Android for widgets and custom launchers or just because the new version of iOS looks like the last one. Try thinking like an average person and not a tech nerd.

I am thinking like an "average person". First impressions matter. And the moment a regular user walks into a store and is more impressed by the hardware of an Android vs iPhone (and the difference there is shrinking) or what neat stuff you can do with home or welcome screen (where iOS is already falling behind), or the app selection (where the difference is shrinking)- then you will see a real difference in sales.

I love my iPhone, but I realize that the brand is pretty much coasting on existing popularity ("I need to get one because my friend has one!") - but that bubble won't last forever. All empires fall eventually. Just as Microsoft.

 

[applesith]

in what universe does your friend live that he's been using a gs4?



Unrefined is different that stating it's looks and feels unfinished. When i read people stating that android looks unfinished it immediately (maybe incorrectly) makes me think they are referring to froyo and/or they are just regurgitating what someone else/an article said vs having actually used a recent device.




Exactly.

*s3

 

[bchery21]

I guess we'll have to wait and see how things turn out...for the time being I'm just waiting for WWDC.

 

[apolloa]

hahahaha really? Funny how everyone else is predicting that Android will be overtaking iOS!

Love all this bogus fortune telling.

 

[iBug2]

Furthermore the smartphone market likely going to start to mature over the next 2-3 years. A fast enough phone with a good enough screen will start to come done. (for example the Nexus 4 $299 unlocked model. ). The iPhone4 doesn't compete with that at all. Apple may come up with a more cost effective entry but remains to be seen just how well it is going to do.

What's gonna happen is this. The smartphone market is maturing far faster than the PC market. In a few years or maybe next year, getting a faster phone won't be a thing anymore because all phones will be faster than anyone could ever want from a phone. So the next phone will not make things faster, it won't have a better screen and it won't have a better camera. Current phones already run games at good enough framerates and it doesn't make much sense to put out games for a 4" screen that look better than the current ones. The only reason to upgrade will be due to the gimmicks companies will be introducing. The actual reason to upgrade will begin when they come up with new battery tech that lasts more than 4x compared to today, which might happen before 2015, but we'll see.

 

[Glideslope]

This is of course assuming that Samsung doesn't go towards their own OS.

While it would only be another positive for iOS, I do think your thoughts have significant merit. IMO, Samsung is well on it's way to doing just that.

 

[LagunaSol]

don't insult Ron Paul. he was America's last hope. now you are all SOL

I'm not insulting Ron Paul. Rather his raging fan base that ultimately scares voters away from Ron Paul.

 

[FirstNTenderbit]

As a customer - I could care only a little less about how much money a company makes off me and others as a means to "celebrate." That's pretty much backwards thinking. You wouldn't "celebrate" a gas company for making record profits off of you heating your home. No one hear celebrates the phone companies for what they charge for minutes and especially data.

Yes - if you're a stock holder you have vested interest. Otherwise - as long as the product you like is available and supported - "profit" is meaningless to the customer.

Hey! Hey! HEY! You seriously need to cut that crap out right now mister. There is no room for that type of rational thinking. What are you, normal or something.

 

[flottenheimer]

I've been using an iPhone for around 5 years. It's great, but I'm bored. I wanted to use an OS that wasn't sandboxed, but I didn't want to use whacky flavors of android. The Nexus is a pure android experience. It's very cool, although there is loads I like about iOS.

I'm also curious.
What Nexus/Android exclusive features/apps have you become dependent on?

 

[Oletros]

Android is going to have to do something to prevent iOS from taking over worldwide in the future as well because what's happening in the U.S. is a signal of things to come elsewhere as Apple gets on more carriers, pricing gaps decrease, and the number of people switching from feature phones (that Android growth thrives on) decreases.

No, it isn't, USA mobile market is totally different from the rest of the world. And if a trend has started elsewhere is that heavy subsidizing is ending.

Where do you get that USA is a signal for the rest of the worldwide mobile market?

 

[ssspinball]

I moved from an iPhone 5 to a Nexus 4. Really glad I did.

Continuing that progression, is your next phone purchase going to be down to a phone that only supports EDGE?

 

[cdmoore74]

Judging from the posts I read here at the Google Fan Club (née MacRumors), I think Android has a pretty rabidly loyal following as well. I don't put much credence in this, and certainly hope Apple doesn't.

I'm one of those rabid android followers but my wife has an iPhone. For me iOS is not stale because I never use a idevice long enough to truly get bored. For me it's always been hardware. Not only physical hardware but the ability to load different ROMs and have total control over it. It almost feels like what a windows device should have been (I build my own computers).
And this is the problem with believing in false charts that basically tell you that nothing is wrong. Apple is doomed if they follow this.

 

[iBug2]

As a customer - I could care only a little less about how much money a company makes off me and others as a means to "celebrate." That's pretty much backwards thinking. You wouldn't "celebrate" a gas company for making record profits off of you heating your home. No one hear celebrates the phone companies for what they charge for minutes and especially data.

Yes - if you're a stock holder you have vested interest. Otherwise - as long as the product you like is available and supported - "profit" is meaningless to the customer.

That's nonsense. You cannot make a comparison between gas companies and electronics. If one gas company goes down, another gas company gives you the exact same gas. Gas is a product taken off the earth, it's not produced, it doesn't vary from one company to the next. Same with cell carriers. They all provide the same cell signal to you. But of course one might offer better deals than the others for you, so you may still support them because of that.

But electronics, and many other personal items, do differ a lot from company to company. Yes if Apple went bankrupt I'd need a smartphone so I'd buy an Android phone or a Windows phone and learn how to use that because I'd have to. But I'd prefer to keep using the thing I'm used to using. Same as I don't want to learn Linux or Windows after using Mac OS for more than 25 years. It's a waste of time for me to invest one more time into an OS and ecosystem. So I do care that Apple makes profits so they don't go bankrupt, so they keep making the products I'm used to using.

And Apple is not alone on this. There are many companies I love and prefer compared to their competitors. I hope all of those companies thrive in the next 50 years so I won't have to make a switch. None of this requires me to be a stockholder. It just requires common sense. Time is important.

 

[saturn88]

As an 8-month Android user, and 4-year iOS user, I would agree that stock Android does feel less refined from a UI perspective. The notification bar is a single example - remember purely from a UI perspective, not functionality.

That's changing very rapidly though, specifically noticeable with the 4.0/4.1/4.2 updates.

I feel oppositely. The Android was always more refined from a UI perspective. Apple has always been playing a catch up. Simple facts:

Also, because of the small iPhone screen and keyboard usability suffers.

 

[BaldiMac]

Probably similar to using numbers that favor Apple and ignoring the ones that don't. For example, Windows 7 sold 700,000,000 copies but the number is irrelevant because everyone is forced to use Windows for work. iPhone sells more than Galaxy because it is a better phone and people like it more so the numbers are important. Apple loses market share but the numbers don't matter because they make more profit. That type of logic?

Sure. But all of that has nothing to do with what I said.

The overall Android platform is different than any specific vendor's derivative.

There is no "overall Android platform". There are multiple platforms derived from the Android open source code.

As long as the user's data,apps, store accounts move from phone to phone it doesn't really matter whose "flavor skin" is sprinkled on top of the standard Android OS.

Sure. If you are only talking about Google Android.

No I'm saying that part of what capturing in "disatisfaction with Android" is in part about skins, instances, and specific carrier/phone vendor upgrades and not about Android in general. If the model doesn't account for that it will lead to flawed results.

Unfortunately for Android, those carrier and manufacturer modifications are part of the features you get with Android.

In some section they claim they are talking about the Android platform but in other places like the quoted one there is some doubt they really are.

There are also quotes like the following in the summary

".. Only 9 percent of Apple owners plan to switch to another platform with their next phone purchase, while 24 percent of Android owners plan to defect from the Android platform. The fact that 18 percent of Android owners intend to switch to Apple with their next ... "
http://www.yankeegroup.com/ResearchDocument.do?id=60321


where they are measuring "intent" percentages as oppose to have really done it percentages. There are always folks who "intend" to move but when find out their migration costs are heavy do not. Similarly those who intent to move but final another flavor of Android that they will give another shot to.

The notion that Apple has a "blackhole" ecosystem and that Android completely does not is highly indicative of flawed premises may be driving this analysis.

The other factor is the numbers aren't even consistent on the summary page. Higher up on the same page.

" ... while Android smartphones are losing one out of every six customers to other manufacturers. ... "

1/6 = ~ 0.17 ( 16% ) . So which is it 16% or 24% ? If the 16% is more accurately about churn withing the Android market, so what?. It is just misdirection. If it is about manufacturers outside the market why is it inconsistent with percentages a couple of paragraphs down?

Sounds like you have questions about the numbers. That doesn't make them wrong.

Which means Apple may get market share expansion in the upper end of the USA smartphone market. Just like Apple has been gaining larger share of the upper end personal computer market ( $1,000-2,000) in the USA. That doesn't mean overall share is going to go up though.

Not at all. In the US, Android does not have a price advantage on Verizon, AT&T or Sprint. That's almost 75% of the market. Not merely the upper end.

 

[Nale72]

As a customer, and not a stockholder, I do care that a company makes profits if I like using the stuff they put out. Companies which do not make profits tend to go bankrupt so I won't be able to use their products any longer. And I don't think I missed his point. He asked why should he care that Apple is making profits but he generalised to "customer" instead of asking in first person.

Sure, I would like my phone brand/OS of choice to make a profit, but not necessarily a dirty high profit. In my mind, a company that have under 10% of the market share* have the majority of the profit is milking it's customers and are overpricing their product (overpriced in what they charge compared to what it can do). Sure I can't blame them doing this since people still buy insane number of their phones. But I still think Apple overprice their products and I can't understand that they use the fact they have the highest profit margin by far on their products almost as a sales pitch and that their buyers love this.

*Q1 2013 8,9% of total phones market share and 17,3% of the smartphone market share: http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24085413

 

[ssspinball]

The sole purpose of the apple "ecosystem" is to get customers to "buy in" and make it less attractive for them to leave. That's a major reason why apple has DRM on the videos it sells on itunes and would still have DRM on music if it was possible.

You are confusing Apple with the content owners. Apple had to fight just to get DRM off the music store!

 

[saturn88]

I agree. Why this graph does not show data for the prior years so we can see the trend? Here is why: iOS market share has been shrinking for some time now. Why would it suddenly expand? Apple is stagnant, lazy and lacking leadership. Stock price is an indicator.

Sorry for what? Are you one of the head honchos at Apple?

"Sorry" - meaning I regret. Meaning I wish Apple did better. Any more questions?

 

[johnjefferson]

I am thinking like an "average person". First impressions matter. And the moment a regular user walks into a store and is more impressed by the hardware of an Android vs iPhone (and the difference there is shrinking) or what neat stuff you can do with home or welcome screen (where iOS is already falling behind), or the app selection (where the difference is shrinking)- then you will see a real difference in sales.

I love my iPhone, but I realize that the brand is pretty much coasting on existing popularity ("I need to get one because my friend has one!") - but that bubble won't last forever. All empires fall eventually. Just as Microsoft.

No, sorry. The only reason Android has overtaken iPhone is marketshare is all the cheap phones. People like cheap. You can walk into a grocery store in any state in the US and walk out with a non contract Android phone for under $100. You can go to some random cell phone carrier in your area and walk out with a no contract Android phone for half the price of an iPhone. That is why Android has taken over the market, same way Windows gets most its marketshare from cheap laptops when Macbooks start at a grand. However, now that the iPhone is on TMobile and with that low priced version coming, should be interesting.

 

[samcraig]

As a customer, and not a stockholder, I do care that a company makes profits if I like using the stuff they put out. Companies which do not make profits tend to go bankrupt so I won't be able to use their products any longer. And I don't think I missed his point. He asked why should he care that Apple is making profits but he generalised to "customer" instead of asking in first person.

That's nonsense. You cannot make a comparison between gas companies and electronics. If one gas company goes down, another gas company gives you the exact same gas. Gas is a product taken off the earth, it's not produced, it doesn't vary from one company to the next. Same with cell carriers. They all provide the same cell signal to you. But of course one might offer better deals than the others for you, so you may still support them because of that.

But electronics, and many other personal items, do differ a lot from company to company. Yes if Apple went bankrupt I'd need a smartphone so I'd buy an Android phone or a Windows phone and learn how to use that because I'd have to. But I'd prefer to keep using the thing I'm used to using. Same as I don't want learn Linux or Windows after using Mac OS for more than 25 years. It's a waste of time for me to invest one more time into an OS and ecosystem. So I do care that Apple makes profits so they don't go bankrupt, so they keep making the products I'm used to using.

And Apple is not alone on this. There are many companies I love and prefer compared to their competitors. I hope all of those companies thrive in the next 50 years so I won't have to make a switch.

Apple isn't going anywhere. Neither is Samsung. Neither is Google or Android. So the point is entirely moot. Again - you don't have to worry about or get excited about how much a company makes in profit. I agree - that making money is important for a business to keep going. But "we" are not REALLY talking about companies that are doing poorly. Nor are "we" REALLY talking about longevity. Are "we?"

That comment was pretty much the typical - don't care about marketshare - Apple makes the most profit. Go Apple.

And yes - good for Apple. But again - as a consumer - who cares?

 

[linuxcooldude]

There is no growth in people just replacing phones. More folks coming into the smartphone market is where grow comes from. People replacing phone is just reshuffling the deck chairs. That's what this analysis shows. In a no-to-low growth market where folks are just reshuffling the deck chairs Apple's higher loyalty rate wins ( presuming competitors can't do any improvements to customer satisfaction.) In its own universe that is a believable outcome. It is just that reality likely isn't going to match that. Either in the no-to-low growth or in the incompetent competition factors.

There is also less growth if people switch platforms. Keeping people on your platform and gaining additional users is what also increases growth.

 

[iBug2]

Sure, I would like my phone brand/OS of choice to make a profit, but not necessarily a dirty high profit. In my mind, a company that have under 10% of the market share* have the majority of the profit is milking it's customers and are overpricing their product (overpriced in what they charge compared to what it can do).

I don't agree with the dirty part. Profit is profit. Everyone is after it. And if you think that the rest of the smartphone manufacturers aren't making as much profit as Apple because they "choose" to, you are delusional. They'd all love to be able to sell their products at the prices Apple is selling theirs, but they know nobody would pay that much money for their products.

 

[kis]

These numbers are absurd. Android has been continuously growing its market share over the last couple of years. Now all of a sudden it's supposed to stay put at "34%" for the next 4 years? For starters, it's at 54% at the moment, not at 34. Apart from that: there's absolutely no reason why iOS should all of a sudden gain market share, considering that the sales figures Apple just published say the exact opposite: while iPhone sales went up a bit, they underperformed in relation to the overall smartphone market - meaning that the market share is actually dropping, not rising.

I don't know where that company got its numbers from - but this is a joke. Perhaps these were published on April 1st and weren't found by anyone until now?

 

[Karma*Police]

I bought a nexus 4 for kicks .. I nearly threw it out the window a few weeks later .. That aside . I do think iphone users are loyal because they tend to have sunken more into the ecosystem and have iPads and macs on the side .. Android users have more device options which makes sense

I work for an Android OEM so I use Android everyday, and I can tell you, even many of us think that Android feels dated and frustrating to use which is why we carry iPhones for personal use... So you're definitely not alone.

The funny thing is, many of my Google counterparts also use iPhones and iPads for work, but we can't because of silly politics.