Android-based smartphone shipments leapfrog Apple's iPhone
Shipments of smartphones running Google's Android operating system outpaced iPhones for the first time during the second quarter of the year, as sales of all integrated mobile devices worldwide rose more than 50% to 61.6 million units.
The boost was enough to push Android past Apple's iOS to become the third-most-popular mobile phone OS in the world during that same three-month period ended June, shipping on over 10.6 million devices to garner a 17.2% share of the smartphone market, according to Gartner. That represents a more than 850% rise for Android, which held just 1.8% market share during the year-ago quarter.
"A non-exclusive strategy that produces products selling across many communication service providers, and the backing of so many device manufacturers, which are bringing more attractive devices to market at several different price points, were among the factors that yielded its growth this quarter," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
The iOS slipped one spot into 4th place, shipping on 8.74 million devices for a 14.2% share of the smartphone market, representing growth of just over 9%. However, since Android devices span several manufacturers, Apple was able to maintain its seats as the No. 3 smartphone maker and the No. 7 (2.7%) mobile device maker worldwide.
"Apple's sales would have been higher if it had not had to face tight inventory management in preparation for the arrival of the iPhone 4 at the end of the second quarter of 2010," Gartner wrote in its report. "Apple also suffered from some supply constraint on the new device. We expect that a wider global rollout of iPhone 4 will sustain Apple's sales momentum throughout the second half of 2010."
For its part during the second quarter, Nokia remained king of all mobile device sales to end users with shipments reaching 111.5 million units for a share of 34.2%. Gartner said that the handset maker's economies of sales and excellent distribution enabled it to hold onto the top spot but warned that "good quality, well-priced products were not enough to maintain Nokia's leadership in the high-end sector."
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users in 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)
Despite remaining No. 1, Nokia lost 2.6 percentage points year-on-year, promting Gartner to call on the company's senior executives to do more "to attract developers and other ecosystem members by revising its platform strategy and improving its communications."
Meanwhile, sales of Research In Motion's smartphones to end users reached 11.2 million units, asserting the BlackBerry maker's position as the fourth largest brand with a share of 3.4% during the quarter.
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)
New devices running BlackBerry OS 6.0, like the company's first touchscreen qwerty slider phone dubbed the Torch, are expected to hit the market during the third quarter of 2010. However Gartner believes the Torch's form factor will still appeal more to business users than to consumers, stopping many loyal BlackBerry users from defecting to other platforms, but not attracting many new users to the brand either.
Overall, worldwide mobile device sales to end users totaled 325.6 million units in the second quarter, a 13.8% increase from the same period a year ago. Smartphone sales to end users accounted for 19% of worldwide mobile device sales, an increase of 50.5%.
The boost was enough to push Android past Apple's iOS to become the third-most-popular mobile phone OS in the world during that same three-month period ended June, shipping on over 10.6 million devices to garner a 17.2% share of the smartphone market, according to Gartner. That represents a more than 850% rise for Android, which held just 1.8% market share during the year-ago quarter.
"A non-exclusive strategy that produces products selling across many communication service providers, and the backing of so many device manufacturers, which are bringing more attractive devices to market at several different price points, were among the factors that yielded its growth this quarter," said Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at Gartner.
The iOS slipped one spot into 4th place, shipping on 8.74 million devices for a 14.2% share of the smartphone market, representing growth of just over 9%. However, since Android devices span several manufacturers, Apple was able to maintain its seats as the No. 3 smartphone maker and the No. 7 (2.7%) mobile device maker worldwide.
"Apple's sales would have been higher if it had not had to face tight inventory management in preparation for the arrival of the iPhone 4 at the end of the second quarter of 2010," Gartner wrote in its report. "Apple also suffered from some supply constraint on the new device. We expect that a wider global rollout of iPhone 4 will sustain Apple's sales momentum throughout the second half of 2010."
For its part during the second quarter, Nokia remained king of all mobile device sales to end users with shipments reaching 111.5 million units for a share of 34.2%. Gartner said that the handset maker's economies of sales and excellent distribution enabled it to hold onto the top spot but warned that "good quality, well-priced products were not enough to maintain Nokia's leadership in the high-end sector."
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users in 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)
Despite remaining No. 1, Nokia lost 2.6 percentage points year-on-year, promting Gartner to call on the company's senior executives to do more "to attract developers and other ecosystem members by revising its platform strategy and improving its communications."
Meanwhile, sales of Research In Motion's smartphones to end users reached 11.2 million units, asserting the BlackBerry maker's position as the fourth largest brand with a share of 3.4% during the quarter.
Worldwide Smartphone Sales to End Users by Operating System in 2Q10 (Thousands of Units)
New devices running BlackBerry OS 6.0, like the company's first touchscreen qwerty slider phone dubbed the Torch, are expected to hit the market during the third quarter of 2010. However Gartner believes the Torch's form factor will still appeal more to business users than to consumers, stopping many loyal BlackBerry users from defecting to other platforms, but not attracting many new users to the brand either.
Overall, worldwide mobile device sales to end users totaled 325.6 million units in the second quarter, a 13.8% increase from the same period a year ago. Smartphone sales to end users accounted for 19% of worldwide mobile device sales, an increase of 50.5%.
Comments
Story at 11.
Apple will keep making its money, and so will other companies.
Ad far as I know, Apple and Android fans shouldn't fight each other. They should fight Symbian and RIM instead, because those are the horses everyone needs to kick to the last place.
In related news, all American cars combined outsold the Toyota Camry.
Story at 11.
Exactly. With all the BOGO deals Verizon has, they had better beat the iPhone in terms of most phones sold. Just look at Motorola, they've had 3 iterations of the Droid smartphone. Droid 1, Droid X and now Droid 2. HTC, I can't even count how many phones they've released.
iPhone on one carrier with one release per year vs Android on multiple carriers with 100s of phones released each year. Just wait until this CDMA iPhone makes its way to other carriers.
More proof those units are cheaply made to outpace Apple.
No. Android is an OEM OS which is being deployed on a wide variety of smartphones for very different demographics. We are going to see, more and more, Android appearing on a low-end entry-level tier of 'smartphone' as well. It isn't some centralized plot to take down Apple—it is just manufacturers using a good smartphone OS to get their products to market and compete with Apple, when neither worthy alternative, Windows Phone 7 (maybe?) or webOS, is available on the OEM level at this time. Google's pricing system is also attractive.
Android is going to keep growing in marketshare until it is checked by Microsoft (depending on the quality of their platform), and that might not be enough. iOS will see a lot of growth if they release a CDMA phone, but even then, that won't be enough to compete with the low-end marketshare Android is going to start digging around in. Apple would have to compete in the low-end as well, or even open their platform to OEM, but neither is a good move for developers, Apple, or even us, the iOS users (unless of course that would be the only way we could get iOS). On a related note, Android on phones which are bought by users who couldn't care less about the Android market means nothing worth celebration to the Android user other than to inflate the marketshare statistic.
"Yay! The combined efforts of every major player in the smartphone industry but Apple and RIM has managed to beat a single line of phones in sales! Our OS has beaten a single product line! Hurray!"
Uh... good for them?
Exactly. With all the BOGO deals Verizon has, they had better beat the iPhone in terms of most phones sold. Just look at Motorola, they've had 3 iterations of the Droid smartphone. Droid 1, Droid X and now Droid 2. HTC, I can't even count how many phones they've released.
iPhone on one carrier with one release per year vs Android on multiple carriers with 100s of phones released each year. Just wait until this CDMA iPhone makes its way to other carriers.
I doubt you'd see a significant shift even when the iPhone finally goes mult-carrier. I'd wager we'd only see a boost of roughly 3 million a quarter, which certainly wont be enough to unseat Android at the rate its going in terms of market share.
Just wait until this CDMA iPhone makes its way to other carriers.
What we need to know is how many Android phones were sold in the US versus outside. Are hard numbers out there? From what I have heard Apple is kicking butt in areas where it isn't constrained by carrier choice.
I don't like the 'hodge-podge' approach of Google or any other manufacturer for that matter!
Best
More proof those units are cheaply made to outpace Apple.
Interesting you say that seeing the iPhone is the only one getting bad press on a regular basis when it comes to hardware isssue. The Evo, Incredible and Droid X are build just was well as the iPhone. Also with 2.2 just released to the Evo is a very fast phone.
Also what these articles need to stop doing is comparing an operating system to the iPhone. If they want real numbers then compare Android to iOS.
In any case there isn't anything cheaply made about the recent line of Android phones and on average all of the above smartphones cost the same with a 2 year contract. So its not about price.
Contrary to popular belief, seems to me that devices running Android compete more with each other rather than with the iPhone. I mean, don't the sales of the Droid X hurt the sales of the Evo(just an example)? Which makes me wonder just how many Droid Xs would Verizon sell if it didn't compete with the other Android devices. 8,000,000 per quarter maybe? Thoughts?
I seriously doubt the iPhone's numbers would be as high if say there were 10 other phones shipping with iOS.
BTW, I actually own a HTC Droid Incredible and it is nice, BUT I own this ONLY because I am on Verizon and would NEVER, EVER be on AT&T and have no choice. But that will all change come January!!!
I doubt you'd see a significant shift even when the iPhone finally goes mult-carrier. I'd wager we'd only see a boost of roughly 3 million a quarter, which certainly wont be enough to unseat Android at the rate its going in terms of market share.
On the contrary, with a CDMA iPhone available on Sprint and Verizon, the Chinese carriers, and all the small regional carriers, at a price equal or less than (for the 3GS) most Android phones, we should see a massive market shift. Android units will drop sharply at first, and then slowly grow, taking share from RIM and Nokia. Apple will likely accelerate to 1st or 2nd in the world within 3 years. When Mom, Dad and kids can get an iPhone for the same price and on the same carrier as a "Droid" or dumbphone, and do Facetime--it's a clear win for Apple 80% of the time. Hardware keyboard and geeks would be one of the only areas where they would experience defectors. Of course, within weeks of the iPhone being available on all carriers, we will see nearly all Android handsets dropping to $99 or $0 with 2-year contract. It's the way the world turns.
What I find interesting about the figures is the fact that Nokia are really going to have to pull off something spectacular to avoid dropping down the list, and Microsoft's share has halved in the last 12 months. Boy do they need Win Phone 7 to work.......
Interesting you say that seeing the iPhone is the only one getting bad press on a regular basis when it comes to hardware isssue. The Evo, Incredible and Droid X are build just was well as the iPhone. Also with 2.2 just released to the Evo is a very fast phone.
Also what these articles need to stop doing is comparing an operating system to the iPhone. If they want real numbers then compare Android to iOS.
In any case there isn't anything cheaply made about the recent line of Android phones and on average all of the above smartphones cost the same with a 2 year contract. So its not about price.
That's my other rant. Why is it "Android to iPhone" instead of "Android to iOS". iOS devices sold were over 17 million for the last quarter (counting iPod Touches and iPads) which puts them way over Android. Don't compare a whole OS to another OS's single variant.
What we need to know is how many Android phones were sold in the US versus outside. Are hard numbers out there? From what I have heard Apple is kicking butt in areas where it isn't constrained by carrier choice.
Well according to Nielsen if Android took 27% of the estimated 14.7 (Canalysis) would be 3.96 million in the US. This of course is before all the iPhone 4 launches, and every high profile Android launch (Galaxy S, Evo 4G, Droid X and now Droid 2).
I guess the iOS percentage doesn't include the iPod Touch or iPad (even the 3G version), so if they were taken into account the map would look a bit different...
Because those arent Smartphones...
On the contrary, with a CDMA iPhone available on Sprint and Verizon, the Chinese carriers, and all the small regional carriers, at a price equal or less than (for the 3GS) most Android phones, we should see a massive market shift. Android units will drop sharply at first, and then slowly grow, taking share from RIM and Nokia. Apple will likely accelerate to 1st or 2nd in the world within 3 years. When Mom, Dad and kids can get an iPhone for the same price and on the same carrier as a "Droid" or dumbphone, and do Facetime--it's a clear win for Apple 80% of the time. Hardware keyboard and geeks would be one of the only areas where they would experience defectors. Of course, within weeks of the iPhone being available on all carriers, we will see nearly all Android handsets dropping to $99 or $0 with 2-year contract. It's the way the world turns.
Your theory is flawed. The Evo, Incredible and Droid X all cost exactly the same as the iPhone with a 2 year contract. The reality is people like Android. There isn't anything keeping anyone from buying and iPhone seeing it has been on the market for longer then 2 years so anyone that had their contract expire could have moved to an iPhone over an Android based phone without any problems.
The only reality here is that Android has become a true competitor to iOS.