“The smartphone market is continuing to grow, and Apple is well-poised to continue stealing share from its rivals both strong and weak, Needham and Company technology analyst Charlie Wolf reveals in his latest Wolf Bytes newsletter for investors,” Electronista reports.
“He predicts that Android’s recent decline in U.S. market share will fall farther when Apple releases an upgraded iPhone on both of its major carriers — and perhaps others — now expected sometime this fall,” Electronista reports. “Wolf’s report features charts showing the ongoing implosion of RIM and Nokia’s shares of the U.S. and European markets, with the Blackberry maker falling from 37.8 percent of the U.S. market a year ago to 13.8 percent in the quarter ending in March. Nokia’s European share also fell more than 20 percent in the same period.”
Wolf credits iPhone 4 “with the small gains made in market share by Apple in the smartphone space, matching the slight decline in U.S. market share by Android, which went from 52.4 percent to 49.5 percent. The iPhone’s share of the U.S. market jumped from 17.2 percent in December 2010 to just under 30 percent in March. Wolf tells investors that in his opinion, ‘this is just the beginning’ of Android’s share loss in the U.S., as the migration of subscribers and new customers should continue when the next model iPhone is released.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As our own SteveJack explained back on December 23, 2009:
Google Android offers the same messy, inconsistent Windows PC “experience,” but without any cost savings, real or perceived… I’d call any Android device the “Poor Man’s iPhone,” but you have to spend just as much, if not more, to partake in an increasingly fragmented and inferior platform. There’s no real reason to choose Android, people settle for Android. “I’d have bought an iPhone if Verizon offered them.” Just look what’s happening in any country where iPhone is offered on multiple carriers. It’s a bloodbath.
Apple offers consistency to developers of both software and hardware. Just look at the vibrant third-party accessories market for iPhone vs. the Zune-like handful of oddball items for Android. If you make a case or a vehicle mount, does it pay to make 44 different Android accessories whose total addressable audience numbers under 1 million each, or to make one or two for what’s [well over] 100 million iPhone/iPod touch devices? As Apple’s iPhone expands onto more and more carriers, Android’s only real selling point (“I’m stuck on Verizon or some other carrier that doesn’t offer the iPhone”) evaporates.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dominick P.” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Multiple Android tablet peddlers give up, focus on 4- to 5 -inch smartphones – June 17, 2011
Analyst: Apple iPhone 4 still bestseller ‘by far’ at AT&T and Verizon; still outsells Android in U.S. – June 13, 2011
Nielsen finds decline in Android’s U.S. smartphone share – May 31, 2011
NPD: Apple iPhone 4 for Verizon best-selling mobile phone in U.S.; causes Android to lose share for first time since Q209 – April 28, 2011
Yes
But, but, the next Android device will be so much better! You just wait and see. And just watch Nokia take off when that Windows phone hits the market! Then where will your iOS toys be? We may not make any money off this thing, but we’ll flood the world with so much cheap plastic you’ll wonder why you spent so much on all that pretentious glass and aluminum that does absolutely nothing to improve the performance of your device!! Yeah, you just wait…
Yeah, the new version will have a totally like krunktacular name like jello! It’ll be soooo rad! Just wait, jello will rool!
iPod, iPhone, iPad doesn’t seem to have teach Bream Rockmetteller a lesson. Whatever… we’ll wait “the” next Android device. Nobody knows which one, but wait for performances ! Maybe he’ll figure out what’s really important on a phone when mobile processors will be stuck as desktop ones are now.
It’s funny to say, but Apple is not stealing from Android. My wife just returned an Android phone, she had purchased for international travel. She did not want to take her iPhone overseas, but finally gave in after trying to learn the Android for a week, with no success. The phone just did not compare to iPhone.
So far, I have owned every version of iPhone. Right now I’m plotting how to get the next version. I always find a way. Who in their right mind would say that about an Android phone. The reasons for owning something other than an iPhone are slowly but surely dwindling.
Apple is not stealing, Android is doing it to itself. They just are horrible phones.
On point!
I’ve said it before Android phone are Apple’s biggest marketing tool. Every Android handset sold means a future Apple user.
People just need to try the iOS and they will never go back to Android!
Apple iOS 5 now outperforms IE9 HTML5 on Windows Phone Mango
http://www.winrumors.com/apple-ios-5-now-outperforms-ie9-html5-on-windows-phone-mango/
Where’s that insipid troll from yesterday who was supposedly leaving all his iPhones behind and moving “on and up” to Android? Sucking something short and flaccid in his mother’s basement right now, I’d wager.
… Or cashing his paycheck from Google.
I don’t know where he went but I left the iPhone for Android.
I’m on an HTC Droid Incredible, rooted and running 2.3 Gingerbread. Its a year old now. Love it. Absolutely love it.
I may look at the iPhone again, since with iOS5 Apple finally closed the gap on the things that gave Android a massive advantage. God knows it took them long enough but they finally did it and I’ll re-evaluate come upgrade time.
Dude,
Cool. Different people like different things. And I can totally support that. I think its the attitude that some people bring here that “Apple sucks cause……dumb saying…..dumb saying… etc. So I am going with xxxx.” that causes the flames.
I have met very few Apple product users that mind people liking other hardware. They have just gotten tired of taking the “Apple sucks cause….” abuse. 🙂
Just a thought, 🙂
en
“Absolutely love it.”
Why?
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and guess that it’s for some techno-nerd reason that wouldn’t apply to 90% of the market. Am I right?
——RM
I guess flash wasn’t such a draw then huh
No, because any dummy can see how poorly Flash plays on Android devices as well as the corresponding devouring of battery life. It’s a dead issue.
To be fair, Apple could ship iOS with Flash automatically turned off.. and it would probably still die a horribly death, but this way, they get no oxygen.
“I guess flash wasn’t such a draw then huh”
WRONG….
It is a draw, a BIG draw, on battery life that is.
Here we go again, comparing Apples to Androids.
iPhone is a product. “Android” is NOT a product. According to these numbers, Apple has “just under 30 percent” of the market, selling its one product. Android, as a platform, has around 50 percent, but that’s MANY products from MANY companies. And that platform is so fragmented that it’s a stretch to even call it ONE platform.
Apple competes against the competitors who use Android in their products, NOT against “Android,” just as Apple competes against the Windows PC makers, not “Windows.”
The biggest loser here is RIM. And Windows Phone 7 is a rounding error.
Sorry, that’s wrong. It is iOS v. Android. That’s because there are sooooo many Android phones being released every other week that no one really has a clue who makes them or what they’re called. Droid, Droid X, Droid 2, Droid F U, whatever. But people know Android, just as they know Windows.
The problem for the manufacturers is that people don’t have any loyalty – they buy whatever is the best “deal” or the newest model at the time. They could care less who makes it. And that’s why those manufacturers will come and go.
No, because if it was iOS versus Android, it would encompass iPads, iPod touch, and even Apple TV. 🙂
We’re just talking about phones here… Apple is selling iPhones, not iOS licenses. And the competition are selling phones, not Android installations. And Google is not selling anything (except maybe some ads).
Plus two.
Android is a free OS. We still don’t really know if Google’s making any money on this thing. Apple’s showing their hand, and it’s all aces.
Your own “SteveJack”?!?!?! MacDailyNews is written and owned by Steve Jack. Come On… who are you fooling?
The hell you say! The palatial halls MDN teem with correspondents!
Or at least they probably number more than the Enderle Group, which of course comprises Rob, his wife, and his dog.
“halls OF…”
Yeesh, I need an edit function.
competition is good or we would be stuck with iPhone 4 for another year
If you knew your Apple history you would know that Apple is their own competition. They don’t need a competitor for them to produce a newer model of X that obsoletes their current best selling model Y. They do that all the time.
It’s like the scent of gardenias in the air, hearing the Android market share is dropping as Apple’s continues to ascend. Things are as they should be.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m an champion of competition. It’s just that at this point, where the hell is the competition? It’s not Android. It’s not Windows Phone 7 (HAHAHAHA!). Maybe after WebOS grows up. I’m still waiting…
And for the exact same cost, but additional frustration and fewer Apps (and, amazingly, viruses!) you get, what in return?
‘Freedom’.. although Google hasn’t publicly stated freedom from what exactly. Not ads, obviously. And not Google’s business model. It’s freedom from some unknown dread that somehow pervades the iOS platform. .. Like a Steven King movie, the monster is scarier if we never reveal it, never describe it, just allude to it, foreshadow it.
Perhaps the closest thing to a ‘monster’ on iOS Google has ever named is: if you use an Apple device you will be just like everyone else… that of course, makes the Android name just that much more ironic.
A friend of my wife’s upgraded from a dumb phone to a smartphone the other day.
Her: “I got an android! It was only $30, so much cheaper than an iPhone!”
She then proceeded to show me the notifications panel on her android phone.
There are still problems with the apple juggernaut. 3GS is $49, she didn’t know. “Android” is a platform, not a product, she had no idea. Notifications killed current iOS, she didn’t know that either.
But the biggest problem: the iPhone isn’t on t-mobile, her carrier, so even if she had known, she couldn’t have bought an iPhone.
I’m excited to see what happens once iPhone is on every us carrier.
Here’s the thing, my buddy lost his craptoid Nexus one and being still in contract went to t-mobile and picked up a android based phone for $125 bucks contract free. iPhone and Apple does not compete in that market, let me repeat, iPhone does not compete in that market. IF, Apple were to release the previous generation such as 3GS or soon to be 4 for those prices, i.e. $125 bucks with no contract – well Apple would sell every phone, period. And im not saying that because i think iOS is better, even though i do, im saying that because Apple has branding. While Droid, Toid etc. does not.
The better platform is the one that works best for you. For tinkerers, that’s probably Android or a iOS jail break. For me, i don’t want any hick ups – so i got iOS out of the box, no mods, just apps. I also enjoy my ecosystem, i like the integration. Sorry, to me Google is not competing, and yet should have been light years a head.
So for example, iCloud is already in effect. I start to read my book in iBooks on my phone, i get home, switch to my iPad and BAM, its already updated my iPad to the page i left on my iphone. Google cant get this level of integration without having you constantly on Google docs or some other beta site. And the Google app for my phone, sucks – Google voice is one of the buggiest. Just like Android 3.0
iPhone 5 – maybe a4 chip with bigger ram. Same lovely iOS and will run great.
Next android phone……
Will have an over clocked intel core i7 chip running at 5.3Ghz with 32Gb ram and a 2gb nvidia dual core video card with a huge 4″ display with norton anti-virus.
BUT the android phone will still run slower,
crappier and uglier than iOS 3.0!
Why settle for second best? Here in Australia the iPhone certainly is a blood bath. They are everywhere. I went to a birthday party, 16 guests, only 1 person DIDN’T have an iPhone. He tried to WOW us with his android droid X. Meh!
I made a BIG MISTAKE !!! After I upgraded to iPhone 4 I use the Droid for reading MacDailey because the font can be any size and automatically fits the screen ( for old eyes ). The mistake was ( not thinking ) I responded to a MacDailey article on the Droid. I’M UNABLE TO DELETE MY E-MAIL FROM THE DROID. I’LL BE SOLD BY GOOGLE OVER AND OVER. What a BIG MISTAKE !!!
One data point does not make a trend.
That said, we hope it marks the start of one.
According to most posts on this site analysts are just idiots anyway and are clueless about most things apple.
Why buy into this ‘analyst’ ? lol.
LOL – more self-congratulatory Apple propaganda… Yes, Apple is poised to eliminated all competitors from the mobile space – just like they were poised to dominate the PC market in the 1980’s… Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched – the mobile space is still up for grabs, just ask Nokia and RIMM.
Apple did dominate the pc space, remember the Apple II? Then they dominated the pc space again. Granted it was thru being the shameless copy called windows. But Apple design has dominated the pc industry thru it’s ideas for the past 35 years. They still dominate too, everybody is copying apple.
Hey we would ask Rimm but they’re falling so far behind and firing everyone that we can’t hear their reply. No point asking Nokia either, they jumping from one sinking ship called Symbian to a rubber boat with a leak called Windows phone. Down from 7% to 2% since it’s release.
Android is dropping too. You add in all of iOS and Apple owns 48% of the market with over 200 million iOS devices. It’s getting nicely uncrowded out here in front 😉
Seriously? You’re going to claim that Apple won because Windows was so successful? As I said before, more self-congratulatory Apple propaganda. Plus, you clearly missed the point of the Nokia and RIMM references – not going to bother explaining, it’s obviously above your head.
“the mobile space is still up for grabs, just ask Nokia and RIMM”
Ahem. I think you meant to say:
‘Nokia and RIM are up for grabs’