“There’s a classic Seinfeld episode in which Jerry buys his dad a $200 Wizard organizer, but his dad can’t see the gadget as anything more than an easy way to calculate restaurant tips,” John-Erik Koslosky writes for The Motley Fool. “If that episode were written today, the Wizard would be an Android smartphone. Morty Seinfeld would see the handset as nothing more than a device to talk and text, and the commentary would be dead-on.”
“We read plenty about Android’s growing dominance in worldwide market share [80% vs. Apple’s 14% according to Strategy Analytics],” Koslosky writes. “What we don’t read a lot about is how much all these web-connectors get used as actual smartphones. Those stats tell a much different story. Apple’s iOS owns some 55% of smartphone web activity. Android, despite its overwhelming lead in market share, owns just 28%.”
“So, what story do these numbers tell? Apple users are deliberately buying handheld computers. Android users, on the other hand, are often just upgrading from cell phones and feature phones to smartphones because their carriers are offering a nicer device with more capabilities for no greater charge,” Koslosky writes. “This may help explain why more Android users switch to Apple smartphones than iPhone users make the switch to Android.”
“These are potentially troubling statistics for Google. Web activity is important to Google. The company has made its Android platform available for free, banking on increasing web use and web search, Google’s bread and butter,” Koslosky writes. “What these numbers also show is that the true smartphone market — the one where people actually use their phones as computers — may not be as saturated as device sales indicate. If Apple can continue to add customers looking to upgrade from a low-cost Android, investors could see market-share numbers begin to move in Apple’s favor as the market matures.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “David E.” for the heads up.]