Android phone sales up 1,309% It's been a good year for Android-based smartphones: their worldwide sales are up 1,309 per cent, year-on-year, according to research outfit Canalys. "With Samsung, HTC, Motorola, and Sony Ericsson all delivering large numbers of Android devices, and with focused efforts from many other vendors, such as LG, Huawei and Acer, …
Yes, Orange are rather keen to push Windows 7 phones, presumably they did a cheap license deal with Microsoft on the condition they heavily promote it. Strangely their Orange online shop only has 1 HTC model (Desire) which is often out of stock. But they do have a good supply of cheap San Francisco Android phones which I will continue to rave about - £99 on PAYG. It's a rebadged ZTE Blaze. There are some excellent new ROMs for it on Modaco.com
Sorry Bill. Too little and far too late.
"Sorry Bill. Too little and far too late."
I'm not too sure. As much as I dislike Microsoft on the desktop, it's great they are finally here for the smartphone party - more competition will make Apple/Android/everyone take notice and hopefully work harder to make all the platforms better.
There's nothing worse than a single platform wiping the floor with the others... we want CHOICE - and everyone one their toes working to *try* to beat the others.
I agree with you in theory, but Microsoft doesn't have a history of competing fairly. Rather, they have a history of stiffing innovation. I am not happy to see them enter this market, because they will not compete 'fairly'.
Reading some of the posts above, Orange seems to be 'heavily marketing' the WP7 phones, to the detriment of others. This is the kind of crap we can do without. That doesn't foster competition, that just overshadows the competition via blunt force.
iPhones were never meant to take over the world. They have constantly been priced and marketed to be on the top tier of phones. The fact they have done so well is probably a huge surprise for Apple as much as everyone else.
Android is perfect to take over every other part of the marketplace. Cheap (inexpensive) phones filling every other niche, right up to phones as good as/better than Apple/whoever.
Anyone who didn't see this happening wasn't looking very hard were they?
I would say Apple are top tier regarding usability, which comes with obvious compromises, leaving them less than top tier regarding functionality when compared to the top spec Android devices.
As for Nokia, they haven't been top tier since the Communicator days which was short lived after the arrival of the Sony Ericsson P series (earlier ones anyway). Their new Symbian 3 device can't even compete with the SE Satio released around a year ago now.
"Anyone who didn't see this happening wasn't looking very hard were they?"
I foretold this ages ago but the fanbois would always mark me down.
Noone in the right mind could expect iphones to be dominant compared to cheaper competition with more features and less Orwellian control from Steve Jobs.
"I guess iPhone's are no longer the trend anymore"
They lasted until a decent priced alternative came about, iphone share will fall fast now.
I only know 1 person with an iphone, 6 people with a HTC Desire, 2 with a droid of some sort and 3 with an X10 or X10 mini.
Androids have won
The problem for Apple here though is as better smartphones start to move into the mid range & budget market, people using them will become more accustomed to Android and will be more likely to upgrade to something they know with better features that will likely still be far less expensive than the iPhone with as good as features. With a phone like the HTC Wildfire leading the way, higher end phones like the iPhone will become more & more irrelevant. It will become less of a must have useful device and more of a very expensive phone with features that can be found on cheaper devices. It will still have a market in the Apple fans that will steadfastly refuse to buy anything else, but for many it will no longer be a justifiable expense as better, cheaper Android phones are released.
TBH, I'm not sure the sales numbers can be used as a representation of peoples preference of Android vs iOS.
Personally I own an Iphone 4, and I love it, but there are Android phones that compete with the iPhone quite well on function and performance such as the Galaxy or Desire, while dirt cheap phones such as the ZTE Racer cannot really compare to either, and does not suggest a prefference for Android, merely a preference for a cheap smartphone.
I guess what I am trying to say is that a big part of the numbers are not comparable, a similar comparison would be android tablet sales compared to the ipad. I dare say that there are likely more android tablets manufactured than the ipad, they are everywhere, yet with only a few exceptions, they cannot really be considered compitition.
To be honest, I have to wonder if this sort of comparison may ultimately damage Android, since it seems to suggest that all Android phones are equal, and for a person who buys a cheap android device, it may be that the first device will be the last.
but I think what this does show is how people are starting to understand their needs slightly more.
<anecdote>
My sister (29) was going on about getting an iPhone for over a year (waiting for contract to end), and then she suddenly called to tell me she had a Galaxy S and was crazy in love with it.
Weird thing: she hadn't even tried one before. I'll never understand how phone shops expect to sell phones without letting people try them out, but they seem to do okay.
When I asked her why, she said that the Galaxy S did everything she needed. She had almost no understanding of what Android was (she thought it was something to do with the market), and that's possible Android's biggest strength.
Despite what people say about OEMs not being able to distinguish their product with Android, I don't think average consumers really care, as long as they're told that the phone does what they want it to do.
I've had many makes of smartphone for the last decade but I was seriously impressed with my new Android phone. It's so intuitive that I found my 4 year old had picked it up, worked out how to unlock it (she can't read yet) and load and play various games.
It looks like Android will go from strength to strength as it appears on cheaper phones. You no longer need to pay £500 to own an iphone when a Android phone can do pretty much all that from £99 upwards. iVery iSmart iPhones iThat iAren't iActually iPhones(TM)
I also have a non-reading four-year-old who has figured his way through the UI and is capable of unlocking my phone, firing up Angry Birds and amusing himself on the rare occasions when he finds my Desire unoccupied. This is inexpressibly cool to observe. Of course, being a Geek Dad, I can't wait to get him started on App Inventor. Okay, we'll have to start with "See Spot run" but still... :)
Is the iPhone as easy? Maybe. I haven't played (let alone worked) with one yet, so it's hard to be sure. I know all my colleagues who "upgraded" to iPhone4 have had a lot more trouble with their handsets than I did with mine, but that's just anecdotal evidence from a biased source so I'd ignore it if I were you...
The iPhone is no more expensive, and often cheaper than it's competiton. The Galaxy s for example is £400 - £450 depending on where you buy it. When you consider the fact that you will also need to buy a [slow] MicroSD card, the price is not that much lower than the iPhone 4 and about the same as the 3GS.
If your figures are accurate (you provide no source) then you have only confirmed my earlier comment where I suggest that Android is only outselling the iPhone because of the cheap and nasty handsets that are available, and that the high end handsets that every one uses to rave about the virtues of android are not coming close to the sales numbers that the iPhone has.
Samsung sold over 1 million Galaxy S in the US in the first 6 weeks. http://www.pcworld.com/article/204398/samsung_sells_1_million_galaxy_s_phones_in_us.html
They sold over 5 million worldwide in a little over a quarter.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/10/06/samsung-galaxy-s-sales-surpass-five-million-world-domination-pl/
"Apple has 3.9% of the GLOBAL handset market and takes 47% of the entire industry profits."
A precarious position. Some event (eg an exceptionally good Android phone) might make many iPhone fans may realize they are paying a lot of extra for nothing, and that would wipe out Apple's profits.
Wonder what would happen if Nokia introduced an Android with a really good hardware? Ok, it will be a freezing day in H*ll when Nokia switches. (But then, Finland did win the Eurovision song contest a few years back, with a monster rock band, which most people considered an equally improbable situation...).
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