Posted on 08/02/2010 10:32:17 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It's happening, Apple!
Google's free and open-source Android operating system shot past its competitors last quarter to become the top-selling U.S. smartphone OS, according to research firm Canalys.
Android accounted for 34% of the 14.7 million smartphones sold in the U.S. last quarter, while RIM was 32.1% of the market and Apple was 21.7%, Canalys estimates. That's a huge victory for Google, which was zero two years ago.
Yes, Apple's iPhone 4 didn't launch until the very end of the quarter, and Q3 should be bigger for Apple. But the fact that Google is anywhere near Apple's market share -- let alone halfway above it -- must concern both Apple and RIM.
What does it mean for Apple? It's time to start selling the iPhone at more U.S. carriers, and not just AT&T.
Apple must sell the iPhone at Verizon Wireless, the biggest U.S. carrier, as soon as possible, and potentially at T-Mobile, too. In the U.S. smartphone market, carriers still handle most of the distribution -- Google learned this the hard way when its would-be-disruptor Nexus One store flopped. And now only about a third of iPhone buyers are switching to AT&T from other carriers. So if Apple wants to take the top position in the market, it's going to have to sell the iPhone at more carriers.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
What does it mean for RIM? The new BlackBerry 6 platform, which is expected to be unveiled at an event tomorrow in New York, had better be VERY good.
RIM led the U.S. smartphone market for a long time based on its strong brand and distribution across all major carriers. But RIM has totally dropped the ball when it comes to evolving and improving its platform: It missed the boat on touch phones, its app platform and web browsers have been terrible so far, and the main reason that it’s still selling so many BlackBerry devices in the U.S. are super-cheap deals and buy-one, get-one-free offers. If BlackBerry 6 isn’t a huge improvement, RIM could wind up stuck at the low-margin, low-end of the smartphone market —not where it wants to be.
It depends, Apple’s goal may be margin and profit, and not just volume. The two are not synonymous. It would also be consistent with Apple’s history. They may have entry level items, but Apple products, going back to the Apple II, have never been “Economy” models.
bttt
Count two more Android sales to me because Apple stuck with AT&T.
Of course that illustrates that some aren’t buying Android because they like it more, but because they like their own carrier more than AT&T. Dropping AT&T exclusivity should have been the “And one more thing...” at the iPhone 4 launch. I’d have held off on my Android purchases if I could have been sure that was coming.
For the love of all that is Holy and the reasoning of mankind!! Is there not one reporter in this world who understands this plain and simple situation?
I will spell it out in short bullet points. Pay attention!
Apple invented the modern touch smartphone. And because Apple was not a phone maker but a PC maker, Verizon, which was offered first dibs, passed on it.
Apple knew this idea would be gold and totally change everything in the phone world, but they needed a partner to prove it. Any partner. ALL of the phone providers laughed, and passed. Except for little cut rate Cingular. They took the chance but demanded a 5 year exclusive to the deal. Apple's choice was take it or leave it.
ATT got wind of this deal, saw the prototype and bought out, merged or otherwise took over and Cingular vanished. Verizon still laughed. Sprint shook their heads. Nokia, RIM, even Palm covered their eyes and "couldn't watch the train wreck".
Apple suddenly leaped to the top of the market. MILLIONS were sold and ATT was riding the wave to glory. Verizon came begging, but Apple had been locked in. They could NOT let Verizon have a phone if their very company depended on it.
Verizon shopped around looking for a maker who could challenge the iPhone. Enter Google. Flush with their dotcom cash, they jumped in. Palm and Sprint joined together for the 3rd combo.
Verizon IS bigger than ATT or Sprint. And everyone knows the gig is up this fall. Verizon loves android, but will ALSO love iPhone and then, when the playing field is again equal, we will see that the iPhone regains its dominance.
Droid is a plastic clunky, virus ridden bloatware of a phone with a tiny fuzzy screen. But it is ALL else their is. If you are on Verizon, you CAN'T HAVE the best, so you have to settle.
So, these little articles which purport that they know what can help Apple, that they need Verizon, is like telling conservatives they need to get rid of Obama, Pelosi and Reid. HELLO????
DUH. We are working on all of the above as fast as possible, but thanks for the newsflash!
MORE NEWS HERE :
Report: Android is New Smartphone Market Leader; Passes Apple, RIM
Google posts an amazing 886 percent year-to-year growth in sales
When Google’s Android mobile OS launched it was met with skepticism, pessimism, and doubt. Slowly but surely, Google recruited new hardware partners, launched new handsets, eventually reaching sales of 65,000 units a day — then 100,000. And Google maintained a relentless pace of OS releases — with such high profile updates as Android 1.5, 2.0, 2.1, and, most recently, 2.2 (Froyo).
Now market researcher Canalys claims that Google is now the top player in the U.S. smartphone market in terms of market share. According to Canalys’s extensive study, Google owns 34 percent of the market compared to Research in Motion’s 32 percent and Apple’s 21.7 percent.
Propelled by wildly successful handsets like HTC Hero (October 2009), Motorola Droid (November 2009), HTC Droid Incredible (April 2010), HTC EVO 4G (June 2010), and Motorola Droid X (July 2010), Google has dominated the market with an astounding sales growth of 886 percent.
Perhaps the only analogy to what Google is doing in the history of operating systems is Microsoft’s incredible conquest of the personal computer operating system market with Windows. Much like Windows, Google’s multi-hardware OEM, open approach, focused on providing customers with a broad array of choices, is crushing its more specialized competitors, like Apple (which ironically was similarly crushed by Microsoft in the PC OS market).
That’s not to say that Apple or RIM are posting financial losses. In fact, Apple grew 61 percent in sales year-to-year and RIM grew 41 percent. What is happening, though, is that they appear to be missing the growth opportunity that Android has found with its open, third-party hardware model.
Android’s success looks especially scary considering that it appears to just be getting warmed up. Android 3.0 “Gingerbread” should launch this holiday season with some pretty amazing new features. Motorola, HTC, and others are reportedly already cooking up new high end handsets to accompany the OS launch.
In terms of individual hardware OEMs, Nokia still is the dominant party, owning 38 percent of the market. Overall smartphone sales rose 64 percent on a year-to-year basis.
No smart phone manufacturer is going to pony up and build their own when you can license and modify Google’s for free. The app developers (i’m a developer) will follow. Once Androids market penetration reaches close to 50%, you find a lot of developers (particularly smaller developers) will pass on developing for other OS’s and focus on Android exclusively. It’s a feedback loop. People buy the Android because it has a lot of cheap apps, which causes more developers to jump on, which pushes sales.
Still can’t sync my Outlook contacts to my Droid. Only thing that syncs is the calendar. That’s it. Only way it seems to work well is if you are working with an exchange server.
I thought that the iPhone 3G was a decent piece of tech, but that the AT&T service was seriously lacking.
Still miss my Blackberry.
On what planet is that?
My my... Droid X eats iPhone for breakfast. Fuzzy screen indeed.
The iPhone 3 was still selling. Plus iPhone 4 has had serious loss of signal issues anyways. Plus, Motorola's hot sellig Android X didn't launch till the very end of the quarter as well, and that never stopped Android phones from blowng the doors off the hinges did it?
In any case, I posted a few months back in another thread that Androids will take the lead by a year's time. Seems to have happened even faster than I expected.
and Q3 should be bigger for Apple
Q3 will be bigger for Android's too, with all the hot new Androids that just launched (and more to come), like Moto’s hot new Android X and Samsung’s Galaxy.
You neglect the basic point of this article. Google suceeds not because it is superior. But because it has a monopoly on the largest carrier. This ends this year. 2011 the game field will be level.
Appleheads can’t have the best...AT&T for carrier and a device controlled by the whims of Steve Jobs. vs. Verizon network and Android OS. Take your choice
Huh? What monopoly is that?
Verizon sell smartphones from everyone apart from Apple. RIM sells plenty of Blackberry smartphones on Verizon.
in this area microsoft is done.
Does android sync outlook contacts and calendaring?
Great. If he's right, then mediocrity will win again in the phone market.
Android 3.0 “Gingerbread” should launch this holiday season with some pretty amazing new features.
I just don't see anything even rumored about 3.0 to be anywhere close to "amazing." It's going to get WebM video compatibility and, wow, the copy/paste may not suck like it does now. Rumored is an answer to iTunes (already several store options out there), a better UI (yay, they've done that for the last couple releases), and streaming media from your PC (basically integrating SlingPlayer, which was recently released for Android anyway). Android 2.2 was a bigger release just for installing apps on the SD card, multiple app updating, Flash support, and JIT compiling (the latter giving a big speed increase).
Motorola, HTC, and others are reportedly already cooking up new high end handsets to accompany the OS launch.
They don't time phone releases with Android releases. If they did, the recent high-end Android phones would have been timed and shipped with Android 2.2, and none of them were. In reality, manufacturer-specific updates will be released months after Android 3.0 is released, hopefully, maybe, we hope so. Verizon won't even tell me if they'll release 2.2 for my phone I bought earlier this year.
Looks like he still is not very teachable and will quickly fall flat on his face a second time.
People just don't like being gouged, overcharged or forced to buy a product. The moment a better product that offers a better bargain or choices comes along, consumers quickly vote with their feet.
Mediocrity will always win in any market place.
There will always be more Chevrolet Malibus sold than Lamborghini vehicles. That is just the nature of any economic purchase. You may not want to believe this, but a lot of people buy a phone for no other reason than to talk.
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