According to the latest research from Strategy Analytics, smartphone shipments fell 5 percent annually to reach 24 million units in the United States during the second quarter of 2012. The Android operating system lost ground to Apple’s market defining iOS and Android’s market share fell four points on an annual basis to 56 percent.
Alex Spektor, Associate Director at Strategy Analytics, said, “Smartphone shipments fell 5 percent annually to reach 23.8 million units in the United States in Q2 2012. This was one of the slowest growth rates ever experienced by the important US smartphone market. A volatile economy, maturing penetration of smartphones among contract mobile subscribers, and major operators tightening their upgrade policies to enhance profits were among the main causes of the slowdown.”
Neil Mawston, Executive Director at Strategy Analytics, added, “We estimate Android shipped 13.4 million smartphones for 56 percent share of the United States market in the second quarter of 2012. This was down from 15.3 million units shipped and 61 percent share a year earlier. Android remains the number one platform by volume in the United States, but its market share is approaching a peak and Apple iOS has been gaining ground. Apple’s US market share has risen by ten points from 23 percent in Q2 2011 to 33 percent in Q2 2012. Apple is rumored to be launching a new iPhone in the coming weeks, and that event, if it takes place, is going to heap even more pressure on Android in its home market.”
Scott Bicheno, Senior Analyst at Strategy Analytics, added, “Blackberry’s smartphone market share in the United States has dropped from 11 percent to 7 percent over the past year, reaching its lowest level in recent history. Consumers, businesses and operators continue to be frustrated by Blackberry’s limited toushcreen smartphone portfolio and repeated delays to its new BB10 operating system.”
United States Smartphone OS Shipments and Market Share in Q2 2012
The full report, North America Smartphone Vendor & OS Market Share by Country: Q2 2012, is published by the Strategy Analytics Wireless Smartphone Strategies (WSS) service, details of which can be found here.
Source: Strategy Analytics
Here are the real numbers that don’t come from the spin meisters.
“Net Applications, which monitors hits on its 40,000 client sites and weighs the results based on population statistics, issued a report Sunday that shows Apple’s iOS dominating the mobile Web with a record 65.27% share, up 4.2% percentage points in June alone,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“Google’s Android — despite smartphone sales that have long since overtaken the iPhone’s — came in far behind at 19.73%, although its growth year over year was faster (38% to 24.5% for iOS),” P.E.D. reports. Based on these, Android users are either too stupid to use a web browser, or Gurgle and cohorts are simply lying.
In May, the iPad had accounted for 94.64% of all tablet web traffic, the company previously reported. Among the non-iPad tablet devices, the top tablet was the Samsung Galaxy Tab, with a 1.77% share of traffic, for example.
I don’t know if they’re too stupid, but I bet people are buying the cheapest “smartphone” they can get, and only using the phone, itself. “Bigger screen; Angry Birds, and it’s free; I’ll take it!”
I know the 3GS for $1 was outselling all Androids on AT&T at the end of last year, and it was 2.5 years old at that point. I don’t know if that’s still true, but it’s very, very telling that it happened at all.
Both sizes of Samsung tablets are available at Costco. I couldn’t find iTunes cards though.
Keep in mind that the iOS web browsing figures includes ALL of Apple’s devices… iPhone, iPad, & iPod Touch. It’s easy to see why they dominate in this figure, but are still behind in the phone sales numbers. I’m not trying to take anything away from iOS. It is definitely the superior platform!
“Gurgle”
+1.77 😀
This is evidently extracted from a study that costs $6,999 to purchase.
So Android unit sales moves down 12.4% from 15.3 to 13.4 million units.
Apple’s iOS moves up 33.9% from 5.9 to 7.9 million units.
So, with a 46.3% difference in unit growth, in 2 to 3 years, will there even be an Android (almost) smart phone sold in the USA? The court case starting today may kill off the thieving Android phones even quicker than is crappy Google DNA does!
Or
The non iOS had a negative 17.6% growth going from 19.3 to 15.9 million units.
Again, Apple’s iOS positive growth is up 33.9% from 5.9 to 7.9 million units.
That is a 51.9% difference in growth rate!
So, is it iRoadKill or a lot of crappy OS DNA? Maybe both!
Yawn, another worthless study based on faulty data to fatten the bank accounts of cyber crooks other wise known as analyst, a great huckster once said “there’s one born every minute”. Money talks BS walks, so start moving Google.
Apple is more than half of Verizon’s and Sprint’s smartphone sales, and 3/4 of AT&T’s smartphone sales.
So this 56% Android versus 33% iOS marketshare data is in half from totally random “estimation” and other half from the fact that some Android “smartphones” get sold without data plan at all — what means that those are used as “feature phones” instead.
Android still has its fans and supporters and I know many people that think Android is easier to use than iPhone.
…and there are some that think Windows is easier to use that OSX. I don’t mind seeing Android around. I like feeling superior.
The Galaxy S3 wasn’t released until the end of the quarter, so let’s not go celebrating just yet.
If true, why do we also have reports of Samsung selling twice as many smartphones as Apple in the last quarter? Something sounds off somewhere.
Who really cares what percentage Android gets. Apple makes great products that I like and buy. Android is for the wannabes.
Agreed. We-The-Cognoscenti have suffered the slings and arrows of having the fortune to buy the superior computer for decades. BFD that Windows boxes were the better sellers by an order of magnitude. We’ll take quality over quantity any day. We prefer intelligence, good taste and thrift to joining the sheeple herds.
That’s not going to change no matter the stock price, no matter the market share, no matter the ANALyst PredicTardiness, no matter the TechTard journalist rant drivel, no matter the plagiarism and robbery.
“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” 😉
Samsung sells many models of smart phones all over the world. Some are very low end, and target developing markets. Further, they do not report actual sales, all accounts are estimates of units shipped. These numbers are for the US only.
I’ve been meaning to ask this for two years. If that Samsung phone dies and gets replaced by an insurance program, doesn’t the Insurance company buy a new (refurbished) phone? I bet Samsung counts that as a sale, and google counts an activation. Of course, AT&T has no new contract sale. Perhaps that explains the divergence of these stats? So, a crapphone can count as multiple sales for the manufacturer, whereas the iPhone probable lasts through the end of the contract!