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Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

extremetech.com

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Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#31

Post by technotony »

cloudwalking wrote: post #13
dquigley wrote: post #11

Clay Christensen in the Innovators Solution lays out an explanation for what is happening here. Apple used vertical integration to make a giant leap forward with their iPhone that you couldn't have made in a non-integrated company. They ended up overshooting the typical consumer's needs though in the following iterations of the iPhone. And the technology that was at first difficult for competitors to reproduce became…

You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy…

There's a slide in here which shows apple has ten times the app download revenues that android has: http://www.businessinsider.com/state-of-internet-slides-2012...

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#32

Post by sinnerswing »

eta_carinae wrote: post #26
sinnerswing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing impressive with this. I know of a few companies that sold crappy devices with crappy OS's. RIM, Nokia, etc. and they dominated the market. Android has become the new Nokia. Big Market Share. Worthless user-base.

> Big Market Share. Worthless user-base. You sound exactly like these people standing in line for iPhones in the Samsung commercial.

you're right. I will never buy copycat devices from Samsung.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#33

Post by ajross »

cloudwalking wrote: post #13
dquigley wrote: post #11

Clay Christensen in the Innovators Solution lays out an explanation for what is happening here. Apple used vertical integration to make a giant leap forward with their iPhone that you couldn't have made in a non-integrated company. They ended up overshooting the typical consumer's needs though in the following iterations of the iPhone. And the technology that was at first difficult for competitors to reproduce became…

You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy…

It's worth pointing out that very similar things were said about Apple computer c. 1990, as comparatively primitive[1] windows 3.0 boxes were being increasingly sold into the PC market at volumes dwarfing what Apple was seeing with their more polished and higher-margin macintosh line.

That didn't work out so well.

[1] And it really was. Comparing System 6 to Windows 3.0 was night and day to any observer, even people with very little market knowledge. Android is, relatively, much, much closer to iOS in polish (even granting that iOS is the "better" choice, which lots of smart people don't).

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#34

Post by kemiller »

nestlequ1k wrote: post #22
cloudwalking wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy…

Sure, Apple is trying to maximize profit. But how does that help me? We're developers right? We need to find the market with the most potential. If I'm developing for a platform where the platform holder is laser focused on maximizing their profit, but not their marketshare... it seems like I've made the wrong choice. I see a lot of iPhone devs (not you specifically) try to justify Apple's shrinking marketshare by sa…

I think it's more nuanced than that. If Apple customers are more affluent than average, and/or more willing to spend money on apps, then it continues to be a great market even if the sheer volume is lower.

If you're making something that you give away for free and make money on the volume of participants somehow, then Android is probably a better bet at that point, but if that's your strategy you probably want to target everything.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#36

Post by Steko »

rbii wrote: post #3
Quekster wrote: post #2

Actually, it powers 75% of all smartphones sold in the third quarter: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/01/android-grabs-75-0-m...

Yeah, and 75% of all smartphones being sold today. And tomorrow :)

No it's 75% in the quarter when Apple's sales are always the lowest. Last year Apple sales went from 17 million the quarter before 4S launch to 37 million in the holiday/launch quarter. There's a week and change of iphone 5 launch in the prior quarter numbers for Apple but you'd still expect them to deliver 40-50 million phones in this quarter.

Don't get me wrong the % of Android sales today is high. But simple math tells you that it's not going to be as high as it was in August.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#37

Post by enraged_camel »

nestlequ1k wrote: post #22
cloudwalking wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are absolutely right in what you say regarding integration. I disagree with your final analysis of where this leaves Apple. I think Apple will continue to hold a significant chunk of the "high-end" luxury market. iOS will maintain high price points and Apple will maintain its polish--and consumers with expendable income will keep their sales strong. I suspect their market share in Europe, USA, Japan, and wealthy…

Sure, Apple is trying to maximize profit. But how does that help me? We're developers right? We need to find the market with the most potential. If I'm developing for a platform where the platform holder is laser focused on maximizing their profit, but not their marketshare... it seems like I've made the wrong choice. I see a lot of iPhone devs (not you specifically) try to justify Apple's shrinking marketshare by sa…

Simple: people who have the kind of income to pay a premium for Apple devices will also be more willing and able to pay a premium for good apps. There lies your profit. (Not to mention your costs will be lower since iOS ha no fragmentation.)

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#38

Post by ajross »

Quekster wrote: post #2

Actually, it powers 75% of all smartphones sold in the third quarter: http://thenextweb.com/mobile/2012/11/01/android-grabs-75-0-m...

Those are the current, just-released numbers (in an analysis from IDC). To argue that those don't represent "now" seems to be to be a silly semantic quibble -- there will never be sales numbers for "now" if these aren't them.

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#39

Post by Retric »

eta_carinae wrote: post #26
sinnerswing wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing impressive with this. I know of a few companies that sold crappy devices with crappy OS's. RIM, Nokia, etc. and they dominated the market. Android has become the new Nokia. Big Market Share. Worthless user-base.

> Big Market Share. Worthless user-base. You sound exactly like these people standing in line for iPhones in the Samsung commercial.

If you look at sales the ratio of Android devices in poor countries is significantly higher than the US. But, for the vast majority of US developers it's pointless to count those people.

If you look at actual US sales, both iOS and Android are on the rise mostly by eating BlackBerry's lunch. Android is still almost 2x the size of iOS but again there far more popular on the cheap handset market and are harder to target due to the fragmented market.

http://www.asymco.com/2012/03/07/the-unrelenting-trends-in-t...

Re: Android now powers 75% of all smartphones sold

#40

Post by sputknick »

dquigley wrote: post #11

Clay Christensen in the Innovators Solution lays out an explanation for what is happening here. Apple used vertical integration to make a giant leap forward with their iPhone that you couldn't have made in a non-integrated company. They ended up overshooting the typical consumer's needs though in the following iterations of the iPhone. And the technology that was at first difficult for competitors to reproduce became…

Sounds a lot like the PC market circa 1986. Except with Google playing the "good enough device" role.
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