The latest ComScore data for North American smartphone platform market share shows that the Android consortium has now overtaken Apple’s various iPhones in total smartphone subscriber numbers.
For the three months ending November 2010, Android-powered phones accounted for 26% of the market – while Apple rose slightly to take 25% of the market. Here’s the raw data:
Big old plummet for RIM, massive rise for Android. This will be the recurring story of 2011, no doubt.
The Panasonic Eluga marks the company’s return to the European mobile phone scene years after several years of absence, and it’s come back to us with a moderately high-spec Android model that features a rather stylish, slim case. The Eluga’s powered by a 1GHz dual-core Texas Instruments OMAP processor, which is running a 4.3″ OLED [...]
The HTC One V is HTC’s third entry in its high-profile new HTC One range, offering a smaller 3.7″ display running on a single-core 1GHz processor. It is is very much the “affordable” option in HTC’s newest Android series, but it still arrives running the same HTC Sense 4 interface we saw in the excellent [...]
HTC’s 4.3″ dual-core Android model, powered by Qualcomm’s all-new S4 processor. It’s smaller than the enormous One X, but is it as nice as its bigger brother? (SPOILER: Yes it is).
HTC is very much B-A-C-K at the top of the Android world with this, its quad-core flagship for 2012. Great camera, huge 4.7″ display and Android 4.0 running beautifully well.
Some camera samples taken with HTC’s quad-core Android monster.
Sony returns with an all-new mobile design for 2012, pairing a dual-core processor with a 720p display. It’s a lovely phone, but is it enough to end our Samsung and HTC obsession?
We’ve spent most of the last week captivated by the staggeringly sharp screen of the new Sony Xperia S, while putting together what will hopefully be something resembling a review for you all to read very shortly. In the meantime, to be getting on with, here are a few sample photos and videos, taken using [...]
LG’s updated Prada phone comes with an absolutely crazy black & white theme, but is it just for fashionable suit wearers who want to make themselves look a bit more interesting?
£30? For a phone case? It had better be good.
Samsung’s official Galaxy Nexus case. Costs a lot. Has a glittery little logo.
Fresh from reviewing the cheap and cheerful FlexiShield case for the Galaxy Nexus, we’re back with another protective offering from industry veteran Case-Mate. Although this particular product retails for around the same price as FlexiShield’s TPU option, it’s quite a different proposition. Review submitted by extremely patient retro gaming advisor Damo. As the name suggests, [...]
Seeing as we’ve just reviewed the brand spanking new Galaxy Nexus, we’re in the mood for some accessorising – and we don’t mean earnings and handbags. To that end, we’ll be covering a few Galaxy Nexus-themed items over the next few weeks, starting with the FlexiShield Case. Review submitted by reader, writer, gamer and occasional [...]
Martin Hill
/ January 8, 2011However, Apple’s overall iOS installed base is still double the size of Android and daily sales of iOS devices look to still be greater than Android. Comscore only counts the iPhone not the hot-selling iPod Touch or iPad despite including tablets like the Dell Streak and Samsung Galaxy Tab in their Android smartphone OS figures.
My question to you is: what are smartphone *operating system* marketshare figures useful for?
If your answer is “so developers and consumers can see which is the largest platform for their software”, then why are you not including all iOS devices in your analysis? If you do that, then Apple’s installed base suddenly doubles and leaves both Android and Blackberry in the dust.
If you answer that OS marketshare figures are important for advertisers, then again, why not include all iOS devices that share the same mobile browser and app platform?
If you answer “so 3rd party hardware peripheral manufacturers know which platform to target” then you should be considering the far larger number of iOS devices that all share a common dock connector and standard form factor compared to the completely fragmented form factor and dock connector standards of the myriads of much smaller competitors.
Of course consumers also want to know which phone has the most dock-equipped audio systems, car steering wheel interfaces, clock radios, etc and of course the answer is the iPhone which is virtually unchallenged in this regard.
The fact is that Comscore includes tablets like the Streak and Galaxy Tab in their figures because Google requires all tablets include cell phone hardware in order to get access to the Android Marketplace. However, Comscore does not count the iPod touch and the iPad. The iPod touch even by itself boasts sales close to that of the iPhone, particularly during the pre-Christmas quarter.
With the iPod touch and iPad completely obliterating the opposition in mini tablets and tablets respectively and sales of both equalling iPhone sales, Apple still has by far the largest mobile OS platform installed base easily doubling that of Android.
In terms of new sales, back in October Apple was selling 270,000 iOS devices a day (peaking at 300,000 on some days) when Google was activating 200,000 Android devices. Recently Google announced they had hit 300,000 activations a day, and while we haven’t yet heard what Apple’s latest figures are it is highly likely they will be higher than Android thanks to the usual pre-Christmas sales surge of all iOS devices.
If you are only interested in smartphones, then why aren’t you comparing Samsung, Motorola, HTC, etc all individually against Apple and RIM? After all, operating systems are only interesting if you are comparing in app platforms.
Why can’t analysts make comparisons that are actually useful?
-Mart