Over 10% of U.S. Mobile Phone Users Now on an iPhone

[doctor-don]

a. mobile subscribers are holding steady/slightly shrinking for Sam/LG/Moto, increasing for Apple, and dropping slightly for RIM

b. Android platform is growing faster than market (+4.6), iOS growing same as market, RIM dropping (-4.6)


Here's what I think is probably happening:

Existing smartphone subscribers are moving from RIM to Android.
New subscribers are moving more to Apple.
Any growth from Android is coming from 'others' (??) (ZTE, HTC)


edit: sorry, didn't realize the first table was smartphones+dumbphones ... Sam/LG/Moto is contributing to Android (smartphone) growth due to migrations from dumbphones. This jives with Samsungs recent reports of 300% y/y growth in their smartphones.

.

As long as the iPhone is not available except on carriers that have the reputation for excessive charges for their so-called services, I won't own an iPhone. My brother-in-law's AT&T wired phone costs more every month, and he does not make long distance calls. MCI/Verizon had increased my wired phone costs until the bill was about TWO times what it was supposed have been compared to when I first signed up for the line.

My HTC Sensation 4G is a great phone. It makes calls when and where I want to make calls. It makes quick connections to send and receive messages of all types. It provides me with internet very quickly. Everything is so much more pleasurable that when I had the myTouch 3G. In light of all of this, I see no reason to need an iPhone.

And, FYI, these ARE phones, are they not?

 

[Renzatic]

Even when the news is bad its spun on here to be good news less market share equals better but if Apple had more marketshare they would be gods WOW. are we that nieve here

This is 10% of all active phones. This includes dumbphones and smartphones alike.

10% of the entire cellphone market is pretty damn impressive.

 

[voonyx]

Are they desperate because they have a larger market share, or because they experienced larger growth?

Both apparently ...

 

[*LTD*]

Are they desperate because they have a larger market share, or because they experienced larger growth?

There is always a market for "cheap and plentiful."

It's not exactly a point of pride when all you're doing is pimping your free, fragmented OS to OEMs and then having them flood the market with the good (and there's not much of that), to the bad, to the downright ugly.

 

[Michael Scrip]

Are they desperate because they have a larger market share, or because they experienced larger growth?

Android, the platform, had more growth... but that's split up among 4 or 5 different manufacturers.

There is never a situation in business where you combine numbers from different manufacturers... only on charts like these.

Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG make up the "Android Consortium" but they are all independent companies competing with each other as well as with Apple.

Each one of those companies would love to make as much money as Apple does.

Having more marketshare is a great bulletpoint on a chart... but it means little in the grand scheme of things.

 

[marksman]

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I hope it doesn't go too high. Whats the point of having a better product than someone else, if everyone has an iPhone.

So you think owning an iPhone makes one better than someone who doesn't?

Better off for sure

 

[lilo777]

They saw 0.8% growth with one phone that was 16 months old. The should have lost market share to the 100s of Android phones on the market, but they were flat. I can't wait for the numbers in January...

This would matter if Apple was about to release 99 new phone models but they are not. With that in mind, the trends will probably stay intact and Apple will lose market share.

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There is always a market for "cheap and plentiful."

It's not exactly a point of pride when all you're doing is pimping your free, fragmented OS to OEMs and then having them flood the market with the good (and there's not much of that), to the bad, to the downright ugly.

iPhone is already plentiful and soon it'll become cheap "Cheap" is not about the retail price. Apple's clout allows them to demand and receive higher subsidies and prices for their phones. But the actual cost of making iPhone is nothing special. It costs Apple just the same amount of money or even less than many Android phones which have more advanced displays, more RAM, support for advanced features like NFC etc.

 

[voonyx]

This would matter if Apple was about to release 99 new phone models but they are not. With that in mind, the trends will probably stay intact and Apple will lose market share.

Apple afaik hasn't lost share in years and have been more or less flat or increasing share. What makes you think they're suddenly going to lose share?

 

[Rodimus Prime]

There is always a market for "cheap and plentiful."

Just point out the argument there now is no longer going to hold water. The iPhone has a phone ins all 3 tiers now. iPhone 3GS being cheap, plentiful and down right ugly category.

 

[tbusby]

Seriously

4.6% growth for Android compared to .8% for iOS? Ouch. Looking forward to how the fanboys are going to argue that a slower growth rate and a lower market share is actually better for Apple.

Are you being serious? So the amount of phones out in the wild indicates that it's a better phone? Let me give you a stockholders perspective. Apple is making tons of money with the products that sell because people like the quality of their products. It's that simple. Android having more growth is great but it in no way means Apple is doing poorly. Put another way - Burger joint A sells 100's of millions of burgers because they are sold at a very low price. Burger Joint B sells 10's of millions of burgers but they are of higher quality and the profit margin is more. Consequently Burger joint B is worth more and in most circles considered more successful. Now I'm not saying all Android phones are crap, but comparing the growth rate really doesn't mean that much. More Chevy's are sold than BMW's, the comparison goes on and on. And by the way I'm not a fanboy, I do like Apple products, but I like Android devices as well.

 

[lilo777]

Apple afaik hasn't lost share in years and have been more or less flat or increasing share. What makes you think they're suddenly going to lose share?

They did not lose share because some rivals simply disintegrated (Nokia, RIM, WinMo, WebOS). When it happened, Apple gained market share at their expense but Android did a lot better. Situation has changed now and to gain share Apple would need to steal customers from Android and WP7.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

a. mobile subscribers are holding steady/slightly shrinking for Sam/LG/Moto, increasing for Apple, and dropping slightly for RIM

b. Android platform is growing faster than market (+4.6), iOS growing same as market, RIM dropping (-4.6)


Here's what I think is probably happening:

Existing smartphone subscribers are moving from RIM to Android.
New subscribers are moving more to Apple.
Any growth from Android is coming from 'others' (??) (ZTE, HTC)


edit: sorry, didn't realize the first table was smartphones+dumbphones ... Sam/LG/Moto is contributing to Android (smartphone) growth due to migrations from dumbphones. This jives with Samsungs recent reports of 300% y/y growth in their smartphones.

.

As long as the iPhone is not available except on carriers that have the reputation for excessive charges for their so-called services, I won't own an iPhone. My brother-in-law's AT&T wired phone costs more every month, and he does not make long distance calls. MCI/Verizon had increased my wired phone costs until the bill was about TWO times what it was supposed have been compared to when I first signed up for the line.

My HTC Sensation 4G is a great phone. It makes calls when and where I want to make calls. It makes quick connections to send and receive messages of all types. It provides me with internet very quickly. Everything is so much more pleasurable that when I had the myTouch 3G. In light of all of this, I see no reason to need an iPhone.

And, FYI, these ARE phones, are they not?

Android devices are phones. iPhone's are advanced mobile computing devices that happen to have phone functionality.

Enjoy your phone. I will enjoy my advanced computing device.

 

[DeathChill]

Just point out the argument there now is no longer going to hold water. The iPhone has a phone ins all 3 tiers now. iPhone 3GS being cheap, plentiful and down right ugly category.

Just curious why you think the 3GS is ugly.

 

[marksman]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Are they desperate because they have a larger market share, or because they experienced larger growth?

Android, the platform, had more growth... but that's split up among 4 or 5 different manufacturers.

There is never a situation in business where you combine numbers from different manufacturers... only on charts like these.

Samsung, HTC, Motorola and LG make up the "Android Consortium" but they are all independent companies competing with each other as well as with Apple.

Each one of those companies would love to make as much money as Apple does.

Having more marketshare is a great bulletpoint on a chart... but it means little in the grand scheme of things.

You are right. These comparisons where multiple manufacturers get lumped in against one other are just weird. They are not useful from a business analysis position.

It continually gives the credit and discredit to the wrong people on one side of things.

If you want to compare smartphone manufacturers fine. If you want to compare OSes fine. This weird hybrid of both we keep seeing never makes sense.

Nobody who actually is in that industry is tracking weird hybrid data like that. It is meaningless

 

[Mattie Num Nums]

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Android devices are phones. iPhone's are advanced mobile computing devices that happen to have phone functionality.

Enjoy your phone. I will enjoy my advanced computing device.

My EVO can do everything my old iPhone can and even more. For example I am posting this from my 4G Hotspot.

 

[Wickedgardengtp]

My EVO can do everything my old iPhone can and even more. For example I am posting this from my 4G Hotspot.

I am posting this from a piece of **** Dell with a 90 MBps Connection, running XP with no sound card. yes, I am at work and I miss my iMac.

 

[Rodimus Prime]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)



Android devices are phones. iPhone's are advanced mobile computing devices that happen to have phone functionality.

Enjoy your phone. I will enjoy my advanced computing device.

Hate to break this to you but Android devices are much more of an advance mobile computing device with a phone built in that the iPhone.

 

[voonyx]

They did not lose share because some rivals simply disintegrated (Nokia, RIM, WinMo, WebOS). When it happened, Apple gained market share at their expense but Android did a lot better. Situation has changed now and to gain share Apple would need to steal customers from Android and WP7.

Exactly. Android gained share, not at the expense of Apple, but all the disintegrating companies. Apple is getting just as many new customers as it always has (and breaking records every quarter almost). Android has, for all intents and purposes, made zero ground in Apple share. There's nothing to indicate that that's going to change, so I was just confused by you saying Apple will begin losing share. That's not to say that Apple is going to retake the share lead, because they won't, but they're also not going to start hemorrhaging share. I think the more likely outcome is that android will begin to go flat. Plus analysts (I know that title doesn't mean anything) think WP7 is going to gain some share as well. Android's not going to just continue growing exponentially and envelope Apple's share too IMO.

Nothing in history or in market analysis indicates that that's going to happen. In fact when Apple releases a 4G iPhone, their share is definitely going to go up (albeit a little amount).

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You are right. These comparisons where multiple manufacturers get lumped in against one other are just weird. They are not useful from a business analysis position.

It continually gives the credit and discredit to the wrong people on one side of things.

If you want to compare smartphone manufacturers fine. If you want to compare OSes fine. This weird hybrid of both we keep seeing never makes sense.

Nobody who actually is in that industry is tracking weird hybrid data like that. It is meaningless

As stated countless times, it's the only metric they have. At some point, you just have to let them have it

 

[divinox]

Impressive, especially considering this is only one device.

I remember back in 2007 when Apple first debuted the iPhone and set their goal of owning only 1% of the US mobile phone market.

Well, if it hadnt been for some highly serendipitous events, it probably would never have exceeded that either. Serendipity, yay. Not only is the word cool, the effects are too!

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one must assume that the rich 1% occupy all hates have iphones, so that means 9% of the 99% occupiers are sitting there with their iphones...

impressive how with everyone bitching about the economy 10% have iphones. People find a way to afford stuff they want.

Or, perhaps the mentality that drives people to buy an iphone despite the current economic situation is a key factor for the latter itself.

Just sayin...

 

[spazzcat]

This would matter if Apple was about to release 99 new phone models but they are not. With that in mind, the trends will probably stay intact and Apple will lose market share.

----------



iPhone is already plentiful and soon it'll become cheap "Cheap" is not about the retail price. Apple's clout allows them to demand and receive higher subsidies and prices for their phones. But the actual cost of making iPhone is nothing special. It costs Apple just the same amount of money or even less than many Android phones which have more advanced displays, more RAM, support for advanced features like NFC etc.

I know so many people dropping BBs for iPhones, Apple's market share will grow more then .08% this quarter.

 

[SandynJosh]

4.6% growth for Android compared to .8% for iOS? Ouch. Looking forward to how the fanboys are going to argue that a slower growth rate and a lower market share is actually better for Apple.

Simple: Idiots outnumber intelligent people. Hence, more people lack the capacity to tell the difference between an iPhone and a wannabe phone and end up buying the wrong phone.

In the 1950s some people owned a B/W TV with a clear plastic overlay on the screen that had a blue tinge at the top third and a green tinge at the bottom third and they thought that was color TV. Their descendents are still around.

 

[divinox]

Ten percent of US mobile phone users, plus all those on iPads and iTouches, makes iMessage a really viable messaging platform and will hopefully save people money on SMSs in the long run. Unfortunately, going through my address book, far fewer than 10% of individuals have registered with iMessage, I wonder what percentage of the 10% is on iOS 5.

Why not use a cross-platform messaging solution (e.g. WhatsApp) that does the exact same thing but reaches say, 99% of the market instead? Same goes for Facetime, really. If anything, these proprietary jumps made by Apple are... stupid. Or rather, it is stupid that users so happily adopt them.

 

[SandynJosh]

There is always a market for "cheap and plentiful."

It's not exactly a point of pride when all you're doing is pimping your free, fragmented OS to OEMs and then having them flood the market with the good (and there's not much of that), to the bad, to the downright ugly.

“There is nothing in the world that some man cannot make a little worse and sell a little cheaper, and he who considers price only is that man's lawful prey.”
-- John Ruskin

Latest news is that the Android phones are costing the telcos BILLIONS in repairs and replacements. That ought to take some of the air out of them pimping out the cheap phones pretty soon. Sames articles mention the reliability and quality of the Apple iPhone. Let's see what happens when this after-sales expense begins to affect the two-for-one sales fever.

 

[James L]

There is always a market for "cheap and plentiful."

It's not exactly a point of pride when all you're doing is pimping your free, fragmented OS to OEMs and then having them flood the market with the good (and there's not much of that), to the bad, to the downright ugly.

Your answer has nothing to do with my question. Thank you for another awesome display of fanboiism though. I forward your comments to my friends at Apple occasionally so they can see the results of the coolaid.

 

[miggitymac]

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Android devices are phones. iPhone's are advanced mobile computing devices that happen to have phone functionality.

Enjoy your phone. I will enjoy my advanced computing device.

This actually made me LOL....and they call android people nerds..."Hey ladies, check out my advanced computer device"

Simple: Idiots outnumber intelligent people. Hence, more people lack the capacity to tell the difference between an iPhone and a wannabe phone and end up buying the wrong phone.

In the 1950s some people owned a B/W TV with a clear plastic overlay on the screen that had a blue tinge at the top third and a green tinge at the bottom third and they thought that was color TV. Their descendents are still around.

Clearly, some idiots have gotten themselves some iPhones. And clearly some idiots have yet to realize they're one of the idiots.

And in the late 1930s some idiots thought they were part of the intelligent group and "better" than everyone else so they started WWII. My point? Stop being one of those idiots.