IDC: Apple's iOS fell to 17% of smartphones shipped in Q1, Windows Phone passed BlackBerry
Gains made by Google's Android platform chipped away at the smartphone market share of Apple's iOS in the first quarter of 2013, while Microsoft's slow-growing Windows Phone managed to surpass BlackBerry in the battle for third place.
The latest market data released on Thursday by IDC shows that Apple's iOS accounted for 17.3 percent of smartphones shipped in the first quarter of the year, down from 23 percent a year ago. Still, Apple saw its strongest first quarter ever in terms of shipment volumes, as the company already announced last month it shipped a record 37.4 million iPhones.
But Apple's iOS platform, which is not found on smartphones other than the iPhone, couldn't keep up the pace of growth seen by Google's Android, which is available on a multitude of devices from numerous manufacturers.
Shipments of devices running Android surged from a 59.1 percent market share in the first quarter of 2012 to 75 percent in the same period this year. The number of Android devices estimated by IDC to have been shipped reached 162.1 million.
Google itself announced at its annual I/O developers conference on Wednesday that activations of Android devices recently surpassed the 900 million mark. Just a year ago, there had been 400 million activations, while the 100 million milestone was achieved in 2011, demonstrating the platform's accelerating growth.
With Apple and Google seeing their platforms combine to take more than 92 percent of the smartphone market, remaining competitors were left to take the scraps. Microsoft's Windows Phone took third, surpassing BlackBerry and growing its share from 2 percent a year ago to 3.2 percent in the first quarter.
Shipments of Windows Phone devices grew from 3 million in the first quarter of 2012 to 7 million in the same period this year. The quarter marks the first time Microsoft's Windows Phone platform has gone as high as third place.
Microsoft's gains were BlackBerry's losses, as the Canadian smartphone maker fell to a 2.9 percent share in the quarter, down from 6.4 percent a year ago. Just 6.3 million BlackBerry devices were shipped.
A better picture of BlackBerry's health will be made in the second quarter, when the company's new BlackBerry 10 platform and devices running it will have been available for the first three months. More than a million BlackBerry 10 units were shipped in the platform's first quarter of availability.
"Underpinning the worldwide smartphone market is the constantly shifting operating system landscape," said Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team. "Android and iOS accounted for more than the lion's share of smartphones in the first quarter, but a closer examination of the other platforms reveals turnaround and demand for alternatives. Windows Phone has benefited from Nokia's participation, and BlackBerry's new BB10 devices have already hit a million units shipped in its first quarter of availability."
The latest market data released on Thursday by IDC shows that Apple's iOS accounted for 17.3 percent of smartphones shipped in the first quarter of the year, down from 23 percent a year ago. Still, Apple saw its strongest first quarter ever in terms of shipment volumes, as the company already announced last month it shipped a record 37.4 million iPhones.
But Apple's iOS platform, which is not found on smartphones other than the iPhone, couldn't keep up the pace of growth seen by Google's Android, which is available on a multitude of devices from numerous manufacturers.
Shipments of devices running Android surged from a 59.1 percent market share in the first quarter of 2012 to 75 percent in the same period this year. The number of Android devices estimated by IDC to have been shipped reached 162.1 million.
Google itself announced at its annual I/O developers conference on Wednesday that activations of Android devices recently surpassed the 900 million mark. Just a year ago, there had been 400 million activations, while the 100 million milestone was achieved in 2011, demonstrating the platform's accelerating growth.
With Apple and Google seeing their platforms combine to take more than 92 percent of the smartphone market, remaining competitors were left to take the scraps. Microsoft's Windows Phone took third, surpassing BlackBerry and growing its share from 2 percent a year ago to 3.2 percent in the first quarter.
Shipments of Windows Phone devices grew from 3 million in the first quarter of 2012 to 7 million in the same period this year. The quarter marks the first time Microsoft's Windows Phone platform has gone as high as third place.
Microsoft's gains were BlackBerry's losses, as the Canadian smartphone maker fell to a 2.9 percent share in the quarter, down from 6.4 percent a year ago. Just 6.3 million BlackBerry devices were shipped.
A better picture of BlackBerry's health will be made in the second quarter, when the company's new BlackBerry 10 platform and devices running it will have been available for the first three months. More than a million BlackBerry 10 units were shipped in the platform's first quarter of availability.
"Underpinning the worldwide smartphone market is the constantly shifting operating system landscape," said Ramon Llamas, research manager with IDC's Mobile Phone team. "Android and iOS accounted for more than the lion's share of smartphones in the first quarter, but a closer examination of the other platforms reveals turnaround and demand for alternatives. Windows Phone has benefited from Nokia's participation, and BlackBerry's new BB10 devices have already hit a million units shipped in its first quarter of availability."
Comments
Cue accuracy of numbers questions ...
So what has Google achieved with this? From what I understand Android is free and they expect (and get) income from ads on the platform. This is a different situation as the Apple - Microsoft era, because Microsoft at least was paid for its software.
I just hope that Apple stays focused and doesn't give in to a fight for more market share, because that will turn out to be a dead end street. I would love to see them continue to serve the high end of the market, and consolidate the ecosystem.
On another note, I really don't get it. At a meeting the other day were eight people at my table. Eight of them carried an iPhone. On a flight last week I counted one Android phone and five iPhones with the people sitting in my row. Where are all the Android phones?
If it was by design, that was a bad decision. If it was because of delays, that is also bad. I don't see how you explain this away. Not only is Android running away with share, but Apple has now let Microsoft back into the game
I hope Apple has big plans up their sleeves for September. I still think its their game to lose, I'm not as optimistic as I was last year
Zilch, from a profit standpoint.
The market apparently likes that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Red Oak
I never imagined Apple would go 8 months silent in such a competitive space - never crossed my mind as a possibility.
If it was by design, that was a bad decision. If it was because of delays, that is also bad. I don't see how you explain this away. Not only is Android running away with share, but Apple has now let Microsoft back into the game
I hope Apple has big plans up their sleeves for September. I still think its their game to lose, I'm not as optimistic as I was last year
Yes, the silence out of Cupertino is deafening. We dismissed the tongue waggers' laments about the death of Jobs but it is starting to look like they were right. I remember the legend, supposedly true, that they found Michael Spindler hiding under his desk several times.
Sales up but market share down. Making money hand over fist but the other guy pushes more stuff out the door. Still growing but at a slower pace. How long can Apple survive, "they" ask.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
Yes, the silence out of Cupertino is deafening.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestro64
I wish someone would publish the data showing what the iOS ecosystem market size is in $ verse Android. I would think it would show a completely different picture. However, we all know wall street only understand widget sold not value of the widgets.
Of the Android handsets sold, Samsung made 94.7% of the profits, LG made 2.5%, the remaining 2.8% was shared between HTC, Sony, Motorola, Huawei, ZTE and all the rest.
Unless you are owned by the same company I guess
Quote:
Originally Posted by lkrupp
Yes, the silence out of Cupertino is deafening. We dismissed the tongue waggers' laments about the death of Jobs but it is starting to look like they were right. I remember the legend, supposedly true, that they found Michael Spindler hiding under his desk several times.
Samsung officials have announced they've sold 6 million GS4s already and expect to sell 10 million in May. There you have it, Apple no longer has the best selling single unit smartphone. Expectations are for Apple to sell 25-30mm iPhones in the quarter, with a similar split to last quarter of 50/50 5s vs 4/4s, so they will sell roughly 12.5 million 5s in 3 months. Lets say rather than 10 million a month this quarter, Samsung sells 25 million S4's........that is double the sales of the iPhone 5.
No longer can people complain Samsung doesn't give sales figures. They are kicking Apple's butt globally. Personally, I think a 4 inch 5s will not reverse the trend that Apple now has the second most popular phones in the world. Really, really amazing collapse for this company. Want to know why the stock is plummeting? Because of an arrogant management team that fell asleep at the wheel allowing a huge lead in most popular phone to get evaporated and reversed in literally no time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
Zilch, from a profit standpoint.
The market apparently likes that.
The less you make, the more you can improve.
That's what the market leads suckers to believe.
Wasn't Enron hugely successful in the market for a while, even as their paper empire was collapsing around them?
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
Zilch, from a profit standpoint.
The market apparently likes that.
Its got it's services on a lot of platforms which may not have been amenable. The Apple-Google fight overshadows the reason they got into this in the first place, to take on MS and others, not APple - although they did panic, and copy when they saw the iPhone.
I think they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams - I mean if Symbian hadn't imploded it would probably be still in the majority. Bling is 17% of all searches now, and had Windows entered this mobile race earlier google could have seen it's search percentage decline further. Now google have a locked in audience, on Android, and are still producing services: google music, voice searches ( and more to come) to continue to gain revenue. They also have the advantage that they can put this stuff on iOS. They are in a win win.
Apple can't compete with them on their core strengths, and shouldn't have tried. Apple still have the advantage of the entire widget - which would help NFC and payments adoption etc. But even there a Google Samsung alliance could compete.
In any case Google are winning.
Strategy Analytics out today saying Android smartphone had $5 billion of profit in 1Q13, with Samsung getting 95%. Apple had $9.5 billion of profit in the quarter but that includes all product lines. It isn't unrealistic to think that Samsung may 'out-profit' Apple in smartphones this quarter based on these numbers, slowing iPhone sales and ramping Samsung s4 sales.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Roos24
So what has Google achieved with this? From what I understand Android is free and they expect (and get) income from ads on the platform. This is a different situation as the Apple - Microsoft era, because Microsoft at least was paid for its software.
I just hope that Apple stays focused and doesn't give in to a fight for more market share, because that will turn out to be a dead end street. I would love to see them continue to serve the high end of the market, and consolidate the ecosystem.
On another note, I really don't get it. At a meeting the other day were eight people at my table. Eight of them carried an iPhone. On a flight last week I counted one Android phone and five iPhones with the people sitting in my row. Where are all the Android phones?
Outside the US where all the growth going forward is.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jdnc123
~~~ verbal diarrhoea ~~~
So how come Apple makes more money than Samsung?
Could it be because of the 65 million smartphones Samsung shipped only 6 million were Galaxy S 4's, the rest were cheap junk.
Hang on correct me if I was wrong. Expect? How long? I though Steve been long gone and his reality distortion field gone with it. Oh I get it. The trolls are on LSD this days.
Then again, Huawei sold over 50 million phones last year and lost hundred of millions of dollars.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bleh1234
Cue accuracy of numbers questions ...
Yeah, because they are legitimate questions to ask.
Quote:
Originally Posted by hill60
So how come Apple makes more money than Samsung?
Could it be because of the 65 million smartphones Samsung shipped only 6 million were Galaxy S 4's, the rest were cheap junk.
They don't make much more....maybe you don't realize Samsung as a company isn't worth much less than Apple after Apple's crash? As I mentioned in another post, it is very possible Samsung makes more profit than Apple in smartphones THIS QUARTER.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Joelchu
Hang on correct me if I was wrong. Expect? How long? I though Steve been long gone and his reality distortion field gone with it. Oh I get it. The trolls are on LSD this days.
Then again, Huawei sold over 50 million phones last year and lost hundred of millions of dollars.
>>Expect? How long?>>
Seriously? End of May is 15 days away. So they have sold 6 million, which means they expect to sell 4mm the next 15 days.