In three monthly surveys conducted from January to March of this year, about 30.9 percent of all U.S. respondents planning to buy a new smartphone in the next year said they wanted an Android phone. The number is up 25.8 percent from July's 2010 figures
Only 30 percent of respondents said they wanted an iPhone, down from 32.7 percent last year. Research in Motion (RIM), Microsoft and Palm also lost some market share. Residents in the U.S. who plan to buy Nokia smartphones didn't even figure on the report.
For now, it's not exactly clear how much additional ad revenue Android generates for the search giant, but it couldn't be that much, according to Nielsen.
Although the Android gains are impressive, they aren't surprising. It looks like we're headed to a smartphone only world, and Google has produced a rather good operating system and it's open source, ie: free.
Apple sold $10.45 billion worth of iPhones in the last quarter alone, well overtaking Nokia -- the world's largest manufacturer of mobile phones -- for the first time. Nokia is still suffering a lot in the U.S., and the situation appears to be getting worse lately, as sales continue to drop in North America, but are still relatively stable in Europe and Asia, however.
But Apple's iOS drop in popularity is likely within a margin of error, nevertheless.
But still unexplained is the rather large difference between purchase intent going forward and recent purchases of smartphones. Apple isn't even closing all the people who want an iphone let alone its share of the "don't cares".
As a company, Apple certainly isn't marketing very hard simply because it's making and selling all the phones that it can, and without spending much on advertising. So, can you blame them?
iPhones are high end devices and Apple customers like to spend money on the company's innovative products. Nevertheless, Androids are still good phones as well. As long as high end means more revenue to app developers, the iPhone is going to continue to do well, since many app developers still prefer to work with iOS as their number one choice, and with Android as their close second.
Let's look at last quarter in more detail
In December 2010, overall smartphone adoption about reached 29.7 percent of all mobile subscribers in the U.S. Apple's iPhone iOS and RIM's BlackBerry OS 6.0 managed a close tie for U.S. market share, with each mobile operating system taking about 27 percent of the share of the market, while Android lagged slightly at 22 percent.
But nevertheless, Android and iOS are still the most desired operating systems says Nielsen. The research firm found that of all users planning to get a new smartphone in 2011, 35 percent of current smartphone owners showed a preference for the Apple iPhone, while about 28.2 percent of those upgrading from a smarpthone or feature phone indicated they wanted a device with an Android operating system as their next mobile phone.
These numbers were largely expected by most wireless industry observers, however.
Apple’s iPhone iOS and mobile devices with the Android OS were the most desired among likely smartphone upgraders as well according to Nielsen, with Apple showing a slight lead among those age 55+, 18 to 24 and 25 to 34.
Feature phone owners planning to get a smartphone were less likely to have made up their mind about the OS they will choose, Nielsen warned. About 25.1 percent still weren't sure what their next desired OS might be compared to 13 percent of smartphone owners.
Overall, women planning to get a smartphone are more likely to want an iPhone as their next device, with slightly more males preferring Android, the Nielsen survey revealed.
But on Oct. 1st, the numbers that were released had suggested that Google's Android mobile OS was rapidly gaining market share in the enterprise smartphone market segment. And there are numerous signs that suggest the wireless industry is getting more and more competitive as each day goes by.
Based on Android's improved security and multitasking user features, Android has a very good chance in being a strong competitor to Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry and the Motorola Droid in the coming 6 to 12 months.
RIM's share of the enterprise smartphone market dropped from 76 percent in November 2008 to less than 67 percent in August of this year, according to ChangeWave.
Meanwhile, Android's enterprise market share grew from 10 percent to almost 17 percent during the same period.
But RIM's share of the global mobile phone industry should reach close to 4 percent in 2010, up from almost 2.8 percent last year. Now some expect that growth to continue in coming years, reaching about 8.2 percent by the end 2013.
And according to market research firm Gartner, Android-based mobile handsets accounted for almost 4 percent of the global mobile phone market in 2009. Nevertheless, Gartner still expects Android to power about 28 to 30 percent of all mobile phones sold in 2014.
More numbers, this time from Canalys
Wireless industry research firm Canalys said in November that while Apple's iPhone is now the top-selling mobile handset in the U.S., the combined sales of Android handsets from HTC, Motorola and others now account for about 45 percent of the total U.S. wireless market.
"Google's Android operating system is now becoming extremely popular in the mobile market and in some countries it is now a consumer product that is in high demand, and the trend appears to be increasing rapidly.
Canalys senior analyst Pete Cunningham says "Android's popularity is helping mobile app developers to build mobile applications on an operating system that is now proven stable, rich in the features that wireless subscribers ask for, and it also offers them access to an increasingly rich mobile content."
And competing market analyst firm Nielsen fully agrees with Canalys. Early last month, Nielsen & Co. released its own research brief of Android, saying that Google’s Android operating system has become the most popular OS in the U.S. among new smartphone buyers, eclipssing the iPhone and BlackBerry platforms.
Overall, Android was the number one choice for wireless users in the United States who acquired a smartphone since March 2010 with Research In Motion’s BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone both tied for second place, Nielsen added.
So far this year, Android grew a lot in popularity simply because the OS is free to any company that wants to build smartphones using it and a wider range of manufacturers have adopted it, including Motorola and HTC.
And while the BlackBerry retained the top spot among all U.S. smartphone owners with a 31 percent share, its lead over Apple is declining, Nielsen said. The iPhone accounted for about 28 percent of users and Android, 19 percent.
In August, Nielsen said that Android had passed Apple’s iPhone in sales among new U.S. smartphone buyers in the second quarter, though it still trailed the BlackBerry a bit. Now Android is clearly the leader in operating systems for smartphones, Nielsen says. And comScore agrees with that as well.
Based on Android's improved security and multitasking user features, Android has a very good chance in being a strong competitor to Research In Motion's (RIM) BlackBerry and the Motorola Droid in the coming 6 to 12 months.
However, Android isn't the only winner here. Both Apple's and Google's gains have come at the expense of Research In Motion (RIM), Canalys said in its report. For many years now, RIM led the North American market with its line of BlackBerry smartphones that have appealed mostly to the enterprise segment of the market.
But today, the iPhone and Android smartphones are rapidly surpassing RIM's BlackBerries and now some are expecting that RIM is rapidly becoming a weaker player, although some still disagree.
But when you closely analyze operating systems on their own instead of just mobile handsets, Android is rapidly gaining market share and Apple is either going to have to license its venerable iOS, or will be forced to sign a lot more wireless carrier deals to keep up with Android.
Source: Nielsen Market Research.
