Android Surges Past iPhone

[milominderbinde]

Gartner's third quarter Worldwide Mobile OS Sales data shows that Android sales grew 628%. The big picture is even more amazing. That red line in the graph shooting for the moon is Android.


For the third quarter, Android averaged 225,000 activations/day, 52% more than iPhone/iPad. At this rate, Android is signing up 82 million new users a year...and that activation rate is rising rapidly. At the same time:

• Android market share went from 3.5% a year ago to 25.5% today.
• iPhone/iPad averaged 150,000 activations a day this past quarter.
• Symbian (Nokia) is still the worldwide leader but is declining rapidly.
• RIM (BlackBerry) is falling nearly as fast as Symbian.

If the trends continue, Android will be the top smartphone platform by the end of this year. The question is, can this pace continue?

The Road Ahead


A year ago, there were few Android models to consider. Today the Google Phone Gallery shows that there are:

• 65 Android phone models
• 35 carriers
• 9 manufacturers

As staggering as those numbers are, more models are on their way. Android Central reported on 43 New Androids Announced, Shipped, or Leaked in October and dozens more in November. At the same time the next Android release, Gingerbread, is coming soon and Forbes says that Ice Cream will follow Honeycomb in the Android dessert lineup.

Apple leads in the US and will certainly continue to be strong, but there are some factors to consider. Apple pays $28.50 each for LG's Retina Displays and $10.75 for Samsung A4 CPU's. Both competitors are ramping up their own Android production quickly. So far, even the 14 worker suicides at the iPhone plant in China have had little impact on Apple.

So let's hear from you. Android has swept past Apple. Will Nokia be next?

See Gartner, Inc. Research Reports: 2010. 3Q2010,2Q2010,1Q2010,4Q2009,3Q2009,2Q2009,1Q2009, etc.

 

[Chris Kerrigan]

It's simply amazing how far Android has come over the last two years. I can remember when I first got my Droid, I was actually still making the mistake of confusing 'Droid' with 'Android' (not that it still doesn't happen, but regardless). And now in just a very short period of time, Android is vying for the number one mobile operating system in the world title.

Unbelievable. My hats off to Google and Android, and let's hope there are many more of these stories to come.

 

[icebike]

More interesting than the numbers are the the angles in the trend lines.

Q1-2010 android 2.1 starts taking off like an F15, and exactly one quarter later everybody else's line immediately takes a nose dive, except IOS.

Apple had been in gradual decline until the iPhone 4 kicked in.

Recent new line of service activation counts from AT&T suggest that Apple is selling 75 to 80% of iphone 4s to upgraders. Sales are strong, but new lines of service are weak.

The over all trend is that feature phone market is being Gutted, but there is a long way left to go before feature phones disappear. Personally, I do not know a single individual who owns a feature phone, they all have smartphones.

 

[El Jefe]

Personally, I do not know a single individual who owns a feature phone, they all have smartphones.

I know a few, but just in the last 3 months, just in my immediate family..me, my wife, two of her brothers, their wifes, and my 66yr old mother-in-law all upgraded from feature phones to Android phones. And this is all from a pretty conservative family from the rural midwest...so I definitely can see the outrageous growth for Android as being 100% true.

I have also noticed a HUGE trend in people, who aren't necessarily tech savvy, when they notice someone on a touchscreen smart phone instead of asking, "Is that an iPhone?" now say, "Is that a Droid?"

 

[bnrbranding]

I hear "Is that a Droid?" so much that I have basically given up trying to explain the difference.

 

[El Jefe]

I hear "Is that a Droid?" so much that I have basically given up trying to explain the difference.

It's brilliant marketing on Verizon's part.

 

[davecttt]

Android is just a better system, but the great thing is that there are a lot of different options depending on your wants, needs and likes.

 

[davecttt]

kind of like Zerox

It's brilliant marketing on Verizon's part.

Kind of like every copier is a Zerox, regardless of who makes it.

 

[Smitty_82]

I love my droid! I cringe anytime my family or friends talk about getting an iphone!

 

[milominderbinde]

Kind of like every copier is a Zerox, regardless of who makes it.

Yes, they have made it like getting a Kleenex or a Bandaid.

83 million new Android users a month. That a lot of folks.