“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
