Android approaches 80% smartphone share as Apple's iPhone grows old Apple's lack of revisions to its iPhone product line has cost it market share and Android now has 79.3 per cent of the worldwide market, according to the latest shipment data from IDC, with over 187 million Android handsets shipped in the second quarter of 2013. "The iOS decline in the second quarter aligns with the …
>BlackBerry had a terrible quarter, shipping 6.8 million units of its very new product line and seeing its share slip under 3 per cent, compared to 3.7 per cent for Windows Phone 8.
Wow if BlackBerry's upper management truly gave a shit about the shareholders they would liquidate the company now and return the billions they have in the bank as dividends. But of course they would rather cash out big salaries and bonuses to themselves before the whole shithouse goes up in flames and collapses.
Sad thing is, their new phones and os are really nice. My wife got a new Q10 for work, the keyboard is excellent as always, the screen is beautiful and finally there's a decent browser on it. It's the best phone for businesses that require lots of emailing (and emails without typos).
The problem is that the Z10 and Q10 are 2 years too late.
So was Windows phone. But (sadly) that is recovering, so why won't BB?
There are lots of parallels between Nokia and BB.
They were both big and lost share.
They both replaced their smartphone system with one missing features. (Both systems needed something done, I think BB needed to replace theirs, Nokia didn't, another overhaul would have done the job.)
They both alienated users with their new system. (By replacing it for Nokia, by being too bloody slow for BB)
They both let down adopters of the new hardware with system upgrades. (WP7 phones not going to 8, playbook not getting the new system)
The new systems both weren't a good fit as a replacement for the old one. (WP is more like iOS, Symbian is more like Android with the app store system. The new BB drops BIS and BES won't work without upgraded servers, so is more likely to appeal to ex symbian users than ex BB users.)
So if BB brazen it out like Nokia did, they may regain enough market to survive, even if it's not at the same level as they were at.
Gave it two (Desire, A500), dropped it, disabled it on the Win8 units and see this as a reason to sell the Note 2 (can't disable fingerprint gathering)
Thankfully the Atom-based Win8 unit replacing it will not accept smeargestures and the bloodstains from Joe Stupid who tries it on my unit wash of easily from corning glass
It doesn't matter how good they make an individual Blackberry or Windows phone device, it's not going to suddenly catapult them to 10-20% market share, I see the same fault in reasoning when people look at the HTC one and wonder why HTC haven't suddenly replaced Samsung as the dominant Android manufacturer simply because they have the "best" current flagship handset.
It'll take years of them releasing consistently good designs if they want to become an equal competitor to Android or iOS in market share terms and even if they do that there's no guarantee.
Instead of looking at it as Android v Apple v Blackberry v Windows it should be broken down into Manufacturer v Manufacturer v Manufacturer v Manufacturer.
Comparing manufacturers is more relevant economically than comparing OS's as a manufacturer may go bust but an operating system won't.
Yeah but if say 70% of the Android market is "landfill" then the logic would be that many of those users would not be looking to spend money on apps as their disposable income would be less. Also many may not even know what an "app" is and have just ended up with an Android phone as they needed a mobile and that's what was on sale that day.
"Yeah but if say 70% of the Android market is "landfill" then the logic would be that many of those users would not be looking to spend money on apps as their disposable income would be less. Also many may not even know what an "app" is and have just ended up with an Android phone as they needed a mobile and that's what was on sale that day."
have i woken up in 2007?
"Instead of looking at it as Android v Apple v Blackberry v Windows it should be broken down into Manufacturer v Manufacturer v Manufacturer v Manufacturer."
I see it the opposite way. Manufacturers may come and go, but the platform is the important part. That's where the developers and (unfortunately) advertisers are going to look.
If I had to guess, I'd say you're an Apple fan and would rather see Apple's much-higher market share vs. manufacturers. Don't worry, next quarter the 5S will be out and IOS will tick up for awhile.
They need better marketing.
Windows Phone has failed massively, yet it gets spun into a positive by the media (3% marketshare based on shipments, with a massively stuffed retail chain is where Microsoft have always been), when blackberry fail just as badly, it's a negative...
In the real world, Windows Phone or the latest Blackberry handsets are owned by no more than 1% of the population, The stuffed retail chain holds the remainder.
Hmm, why does "shipments don’t necessarily equal sales" only apply to Windows Phone 8 devices?
And why should it be surprising that Windows Phone 8 is the fastest growing phone OS? Now that Nokia has got a full range of devices to market, including entry level phones like the 520, there was always going to be a jump upwards from the very low base. Seeing the absolute numbers would give another perspective on that. Nokia has always delivered good phones and has a loyal following of people who care more that the phone is a Nokia than what the OS happens to be.
Looks like Blackberry is destined to become a mobile apps and services provider. Compared to its competitors it just doesn't have the cash, especially with Microsoft's billions backing Nokia for the 3rd spot. I wouldn't be surpirsed to see them snapped up soo, especially if the share price declines significantly below $10.
The reason Nokia got harsh comments before was articles put Nokia's 'shipped' figures next to competitors' 'sold' figures. This time, all the numbers are 'shipped', so they are equally suspect. Androids and iPhones sell, so the sold figures will catch up with the shipped. Nokia's previous unsold stock, return rates and attempts at comparing pears and grapefruit make me wonder 'shipped there, back and somewhere else' counts three times.
I am sure Nokia sales really are up, but at prices even further below cost. I wouldn't bet on Microsoft's billions bailing Nokia again. This time Nokia will mortgage Nokia Siemens Networks up to the neck and call it phone revenue just like the sale of the head office in Espoo.
Because it's only Windows Phone that has a massively stuffed retail chain which includes (very) slow boats from China.
If you worked in the sector you would know how bad things are for Windows Phone. It's much worse than the 3% marketshare implies. Stockrooms are overflowing with unsold Lumias, shops can't give them away, sales staff won't sell them, as they know it will be a returned item the next week, when the owner discovers it's not Android and it doesn't have any apps.
Whilst certain people at El-Reg like to talk about Landfill Android, the reality is, Windows Phone is the real Landfill, and not just at the entry level, but the mid level too.
'Nokia ...... has a loyal following of people who care more that the phone is a Nokia than what the OS happens to be'
That, my friend, is a statement of purest utter bollocks!
I know plenty of people who having been unquestioningly loyal Nokia customers for a decade or more stopped buying Nokia phones because of the change to WP - most of them would buy a Nokia again without a second thought if they could get a better OS, be it 'Droid or whatever - pinching customers back from Sammy would be like take candy off a baby.
The bulk of the growth in smartphones these days are very low cost (the so-called "landfill Android") phones that are replacing all but the cheapest feature phones.
iPhone sales are still growing, albeit much more slowly than they were a few years ago, and thus so is their share of the overall number of cell phones sold.
The fact is, however, that most people who want a high end smartphone and can afford a high end smartphone already own one, so other than people who become wealthy enough (or reprioritize their spending habits) there are not nearly as many first time buyers of high end smartphones.
Just to save people the trouble, Apple's mobile market share is about 9% or so. So you can pretty much assume that Apple's smartphone market share will eventually decline to about 10% by the time there are no feature phones left. Hopefully we won't have to keep reading articles about smartphone market share once 90% of phones sold are smartphones...
Bit like comparing sales of Mercedes or BMW with those of Skoda. They all sell cars, but BMW and Mercedes aren't in the same market as Skoda.
The market has split from phone vs feature phone. There's now a luxury goods segment.
I've never owned an Apple or Android phone. I do have a nice new Mercedes though ;)
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I wouldn't compare Samsung to ford more Trabant, they're not the best build quality and have poor menu logic, reminds me of Amstrad, cheap and cheerful.
Just to clarify this is not a pro-apple or anti-android post, just a "Samsung, they're a bit crap aren't they?" post
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"Just keep saying that, you might start believing it and feel better."
Actually, it just needs translating from Marketeerian into English. It (probably, I think) means something like "[We believe] the majority of iPhone contracts expire in the period after each launch, so that's when we expect the most new units to be sold, with a gradual decline over the course of the year."
That interpretation is also more or less consistent with this quote from the article:
""Without a new product launch since the debut of the iPhone 5 nearly a year ago, Apple's market share was vulnerable to product launches from the competition. But with a new iPhone and revamped iOS coming out later this year, Apple is well-positioned to re-capture market share."
While it's a factor, it doesn't change the overall crux of my interpretation, because some of those two year contracts will be coming to an end, having commenced with the launch before last.
It's not an absolute, anyway, just an interpretation of the nonsense-speak, that allows it to make some kind of sense.
Illustrates how well the Android camp has managed to hide the fact that Android is really Linux inside. Of course the UI is entirely different from what the desktop Linux distributions use, but the same is also true of all other Linux-based mobile phones.
I'm not sure Android is trying to hide the fact it contains Linux… It's just that for this particular brand, the fact that it contains Linux has become irrelevant.
You might well see people say that UNIX has practically disappeared… They just have forgotten that OS X is UNIX-based, and has been UNIX certified since 10.5.
"No, it isn't. It's BSD based."
which, as the openBSD web site puts it, is an open source derivative of UNIX.
So OS X is a derivative of an open source derivative of UNIX, so not really surprising OS X quacks have a UNIX-like ring about them.
NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP was derived from BSD 4.3.
The original OSX Server combined that code with BSD 4.2 and 4.2lite, itself derived from BSD 4.3Tahoe and 4.3Reno, with a pinch of NetBSD1.3 ...
The desktop OSX added several chunks from FreeBSD3.x
Nowhere in this chain was UNIX[tm] involved. It's all BSD.
The CONCEPT is UNIX-ish, but the code is all BSD (with Apple's obligatory glitter).
"Better check your facts."
I think I have a few clues ... I was there.
"Firstly BSD is a branch of the original AT&T UNIX source"
Was. Not is. We re-wrote BSD to get out from under AT&T. NeXT couldn't have used it as a base if we hadn't done that work. There was absolutely zero AT&T code in NeXT.
"so yes, it is a true UNIX"
Not unless ::brandname:: is certified to use that moniker. Which OSX is (not arguing that point).
"Second OS X is actually based on Carnegie Mellon's Mach kernel (which was designed as a drop-in replacement for the standard UNIX kernel) with BSD user apps."
In this case, apples & oranges ... OSX is hardly a micro-kernel, now is it? But it's obviously BSD derived.
That's a bit like saying that Windows 7 isn't Windows because all of the source is different to Windows 1. Other than branding (ie. being able to stamp "UNIX certified on the box") BSD is a UNIX distribution. It runs UNIX code and follows the UNIX APIs. Its full name is BSD UNIX, or Berkeley UNIX.
OS X using Mach as a kernel (not a microkernel version BTW) means that at best it's a BSD hybrid. The core OX is available as an open source package called XNU, it's definaly not just another BSD version. It's also just a small fraction of the OS X environment.
"BSD is a UNIX distribution"
You are quite incorrect, None of the modern BSDs are UNIX distributions. Some derivatives are, however, allowed to call themselves UNIX.
The OSX kernel is, most definitely, BSD based. I ego-surfed the source & found shit I re-wrote from AT&T source nearly 25 years ago ...
You're splitting hairs again. The only thing users of BSD can't do without additional certification is stick a POSIX or Single UNIX Specification sticker on it. It's full name is Berkley Standard Distribution UNIX, it runs UNIX code, it's UNIX in all but the eyes of the Marketing department.
There are two classes of UNIX systems these days, UNIX derived (ie. branched from UNIX at some point in the past, even if all the original source has been replaced) and UNIX-like (ie. designed to have a broadly similar set of APIs, but built separately from the ground up like LInux).
You also seem not to understand what "hybrid" means. Just because it contains fragments of code that you wrote doesn't mean that large lumps of it are not now, nor have they ever been derived from BSD. It's a bit like you claiming that two Ford cars are the same because they share the same steering wheel.
Modern BSD is NOT UNIX. We spent many hours of coding making sure of that. It's UNIX-like, yes. And can be certified "UNIX". But it's not actually UNIX.
If it's close enough to the Single UNIX Specification that it can be certified UNIX, thein it IS Unix, by definition. OSX comes into that category, since it was certified way back with Leopard, IIRC. How much time you spent coding to remove the encumbered bits is irrelevant, UNIX is a specification, not an implementation.
"Illustrates how well the Android camp has managed to hide the fact that Android is really Linux inside. Of course the UI is entirely different from what the desktop Linux distributions use, but the same is also true of all other Linux-based mobile phones."
Yes.
Apple also manages pretty well to hide the fact that iOS is really Lin... OK, a slightly different flavour of Unix inside. Well, actually, iOS is just the sugar coating on the top.
As the Bard famously wrote in his Elizabethan review of iPhone 0.1:
"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, though I find an actual rose to be of more practical use.
Android is not Linux.
Android is an insecure phone operating system, designed to capture users private details on behalf of Google. Google can then sell these details to the highest bidder.
Amusingly, millions of idiots PAY MONEY to buy the devices that allows Google to harvest their personal data. Go figure!
Anyhoo, back to the original point. Android is built on top of the Linux kernel. This is because Google's business model is built upon plagiarizing other peoples work for their own reward. Google can make much more money if they copy someone else's OS kernel as opposed to writing their own.
But Android is not Linux. In the same way that OSX is not BSD.
The Linux fans are desperate to claim that Android IS Linux though. This is because true Linux on the desktop (and indeed the phone) has a market share of circa 1%.
Actually OS/X never claimed to be BSD. It is a Mach3 "microkernel" based OS with a BSD personality having more in common with NextStep (Mach1 based) than any Unix.
Sadly Apple made a "big fat blob" out of the microkernel. A configurable Mach3 box would have ended up under my desk, even more so with a PPC CPU. And likely in quite a few university computer labs to teach modern "post Unix" operation systems on a live subject
Still stuck in 2011?
Jellybean is now the most common Android version and 2/3rds of devices are running ICS or newer.
http://developer.android.com/about/dashboards/index.html
Not that it really matters, as Google have been moving all the good stuff to the Google Play services framework, so the underlying Android version is mostly irrelevant...
http://blogs.computerworld.com/android/22552/google-android-security
Androids share is all the manufactures of Androids , compared against Apple. To make this relevant
split the data into manufacturer, to see who is shipping what amount,
breakdown if possible into , who actually SOLD a handset rather than just produced one
breakdown, into what actual profit that manufacturer makes on their handsets
You can have 80% of a market , but if that only makes you 10p , while the other guy with 20% is earning £400 on every handset sold, then market share may not mean profit!
"You can have 80% of a market , but if that only makes you 10p , while the other guy with 20% is earning £400 on every handset sold, then market share may not mean profit!"
Being that I don't produce phones myself, I couldn't care less who is and isn't making a profit on the hardware.
Apple could do a no-cost revamp of it's IOS policy
1. Allow media and doc files to be moved around the file system
2. Give iTunes an almighty rocket so it looks like a simple drag'n'drop interface once more - and lets you most things you want to.
3. If Apple wants to refuse an API so that Apps can show up how congested the local Wifi environment is, then build in a proper native way of seeing this. "Wifi Analyzer"
4. Some proper widgets.
5. Stop doing special lockdown agreements with networks. Why will my Ovivo SIM allow tethering on Android and the same SIM not allows tethering in an iPhone?
It's not a lot, but the above wish list would keep me with IOS when I next renew my devices. As it is the trajectory is firmly Android.
And I think it will help stop the sales drain for Apple.
Why all this bleating about comparing phone OS vs phone manufacturer. Thats like saying lets compare Original Tabasco against Tomato Ketchup..
Sorry McIhenny vs Heinz vs Crosse & Blackwell vs Own Brand 1,Own Brand 2.........
We never did the same comparision for Apple Macs vs Windows PCs it was a simple 10/90 (or whatever) split and it looks like Android is going to be the 90 for phones. A classic case of the good enough at an acceptable price meeting the publics needs. Exactly the same as in any maturing consumer market.
Cars,Travel. Sorry Fanbois just deal with it..
It's interesting how the analysts present these figures in their press releases. For example, Comscore's European handset stats are described as a dramatic battle between Samsung, Apple and Nokia for the top three places, whereas if you look at the actual numbers, Apple held share, and all that's been happening is Samsung taking handfuls of share off Nokia, and a bit from HTC and Blackberry.
http://www.comscoredatamine.com/2013/02/samsung-leads-european-smartphone-market-ahead-of-apple/
I have the Z10 I absolutely love it, I have had an Android , really never enjoyed, tried my son's Iphone not for me. it's about choice, this is my choice. Z10 and phones with the OS 10 are brilliant phones, but yes I have to agree with those who state it is to late. But as loyal Blackberry user's we will continue to support the brand, I am hoping the new owners have better vision and know how to market a product.,
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