TECH: Wake up Call for Apple: Android Phones outsell iPhones
Google's Android based phone sales has out-passed the Apple iPhone sales for the last quarter in US. According to NPD, Android based OS moved into second position at 28 percent behind RIM’s OS (36 percent) and ahead of Apple’s OS (21 percent). It is interesting to note that RIM used to have 50% market share.
“As in the past, carrier distribution and promotion have played a crucial role in determining smartphone market share,” said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD. “In order to compete with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless has expanded its buy-one-get-one offer beyond RIM devices to now include all of their smartphones.”
Strong sales of the Droid, Droid Eris, and Blackberry Curve via these promotions helped keep Verizon Wireless’s smartphone sales on par with AT&T in Q1. According to NPD’s Mobile Phone Track, smartphone sales at AT&T comprised nearly a third of the entire smartphone market (32 percent), followed by Verizon Wireless (30 percent), T-Mobile (17 percent) and Sprint (15 percent).
Source: www.npd.com
The big advantage for Android based phones is that they are available on multiple phones and carriers. Which means people can stay loyal to their network without paying hefty termination fees. Both T-mobile and Verizon wireless are using Android based smartphones as their primary competition to iPhone. Apple on the other hand has just one phone - iPhone and is available exclusively on AT&T. Also, Apple tends to constraint the phone/OS for certain features like mutli-tasking, flash support, high mega-pixel cameras, etc.
I think Apple needs to to do the following -
- Get a little up to date with the features - especially multi-tasking, flash, etc.
- Allow iPhone to be available across all carriers.
- Come up with different versions of iPhone (like there are different versions of iPod)
Apple does have the advantage of having the coolest phone, but they need to stop banking on the image and not allow the competition get ahead. For Apple to get the market share back, they need to make a major new release for iPhone 4th generation but I have a feeling that it might not be as big as we all are expecting!
newsfreak
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I'd like to see the actual sales figures in units sold. The problem is that the sheer numbers of smart phones selling has dropped off in the last quarter so the bar for "gaining" market share is actually a little lower than before. Remember, market share is just your slice of the whole pie. If the pie shrinks, your slice will look bigger relative to others. And given that the iPhone is gearing up for a major update, it stands to reason that fewer people are grabbing iPhones right now, so the pie shrinks even more.
Still, good news for Android but I'd like to have a better understanding of exactly what's going on and market share is only a small part of the bigger picture.
Andre Richards
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Andre,
If the pie shrinks, shouldn't the slices shrink proportionally? Presonally, I believe that Apple has been disappointing fans by not providing a lot of "expected" features in 3G or 3GS and by sticking with AT&T. I agree that people are waiting for 4Gen iPhone but if it is disapponting (read no multi-tasking, flash-support and better phone), then we might see more disappointment.
On the other hand, Android based phones are getting better and better!
newsfreak
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The continued popularity of messaging phones and smartphones resulted in slightly higher prices for all mobile phones, despite an overall drop in the number of mobile phones purchased in the first quarter. The average selling price for all mobile phones in Q1 reached $88, which is a 5 percent increase from Q1 2009. Smartphone unit prices, by comparison, averaged $151 in Q1 2010, which is a 3 percent decrease over the previous year.
memory stick
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This is great news and I can't wait to see how the Droid 2.2 OS does when released. Look out RIM!
Jaren
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Apple has the advantage of having the coolest phone but they need to stop betting on the image and not let the competition ahead.it obvious that fewer people take iPhones at the moment of so the pie is shrinking prices more.Smartphone same unit for comparison, an average of $ 151 in the first quarter 2010, down 3 percent from the previous year.
anthony morrison
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The latest and greatest Verizon breakthrough is coming, and Verizon hasn’t made any bones about what it’s targeting with the high-profile launch: Verizon is going to soon launch their newest cellular phone model, claiming it is far better than anything AT&T can offer you with their ever popular iPhone's. The Verizon Droid offers much better abilities than the AT&T iPhone and is going to launch hopefully by mid July. In any event these two are likely to continue to be top competitors for the sector. Verizon is claiming their droid phone has a lot more features than any phone on the sector including the popular flash player. This phone will not come cheap to numerous individuals having and two year plan and still possibly requiring a payday loan just to buy the $200 phone.
Steph_D
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