Android Gaining Ground on iPhone, or is it?

[Jeff Campbell]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/16/iphone_drops_to_23_8_smartphone_market_share_android_jumps_to_17.html' target='_blank'>http://www.appleinsider.com/article...umps_to_17.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"New data shows Apple, RIM, and Microsoft continue to lose ground to Google in the U.S. smartphone market. Marketing intelligence company comScore published its quarterly Mobile Subscriber Market Share findings, which tracked total smartphone subscribers for the three months ending in July. According to the report, 53.4 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the quarter, up 11 percent from the previous quarter."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/at/auto/1284667797.usr105634.jpg" style="border: 1px solid #d2d2bb;" /></p><p>This of course, is the quarter leading up to the announcement of the iPhone 4 so it's no wonder that they status were down for the iPhone system. You could also make the argument that there are many versions of phones that use the Android or Google platform, versus just the iPhone 3GS and 3G for this quarter, so why shouldn't they gain ground? I'm really curious now how the next quarter stats are going to end up, how about you? What are your thoughts?</p>

[Bob12]

I agree, Jeff. It'll be interesting to see the next stats. It'd also be interesting to see sales stats for individual phones, not the operating system.

[Vincent Ferrari]

It's so intellectually dishonest to say Android is gaining on iOS.

Android is currently on... What... 25+ handsets? It had BETTER be ahead. The fact that it's only 'gaining' with that many handsets carrying it says a ton about Android's appeal versus Apple's.

Not that Android is a bad OS, and if Apple hadn't made the iPhone, I'd have an Android device, but let's be honest for once. Android isn't gaining through adoption, they're gaining through a market flood against one (or two) models.

[jdmichal]

It's so intellectually dishonest to say Android is gaining on iOS.

Android is currently on... What... 25+ handsets? It had BETTER be ahead. The fact that it's only 'gaining' with that many handsets carrying it says a ton about Android's appeal versus Apple's.

Not that Android is a bad OS, and if Apple hadn't made the iPhone, I'd have an Android device, but let's be honest for once. Android isn't gaining through adoption, they're gaining through a market flood against one (or two) models.

Android is gaining because more people are choosing to buy an Android handset over the iPhone. That's the only reason possible, because that's kind of how commerce works.

And just for the future, I would far sooner attempt to strawman the AT&T lock-in than I would the number of available devices running the OS.

[Vincent Ferrari]

Android is gaining because more people are choosing to buy an Android handset over the iPhone. That's the only reason possible, because that's kind of how commerce works.

Actually, that's "kind of" a small percentage of the actual story.

The simple fact is that if every carrier is adding a consistent number of subscribers throughout the course of a year, and more and more a higher percentage of their smartphone inventory is one OS in 5 form factors (see Verizon) then more Android devices are going to sell. On Verizon, for example, you have two smartphone choices; Blackberry and Android. If I don't buy a Blackberry, my choice is pretty much Android or bust. Unsurprisingly, Verizon and T-Mobile, the biggest supporters of Android, sell the most devices. Verizon is the largest carrier in the US and a good portion of its smartphone inventory is Android hence more sales.

That's how the business I've worked in for 14 years works. Feel free to explain your level of expertise at your leisure.

[jdmichal]

I had a feeling you would respond with something along those lines, so I already prepared my response.

There is only one question to the purchaser, and that is this: Is this phone good enough to buy? Now, there are many considerations behind that question. But that is the only question of relevance here.

What you are basically doing is bring up one of those considerations, and attempting to make it the question. That is why I stated that it was a strawman. Your argument basically boils down to this: Apple has a higher barrier of entry to Android, therefore the Android numbers are somehow "intellectually dishonest". And this is simply not true, because those are factors that Apple controls.

You can say, if Apple had more form factors, it might boost sales, because different people are attracted to different form factors. And that is a reasonable thing to say.

You can say, if Apple was available on more carriers, it might boost sales, because some people place the value lost from changing carriers over the value gained from purchasing the phone. That would also be a reasonable thing to say.

These are reasonable things to say, because they basically amount to the statement that lowering barriers of entry would likely amount to higher sales.

Saying that statistics are "intellectually dishonest" because one company took such a step to lower barriers of entry and other didn't, is simply not a reasonable thing to say.

[Vincent Ferrari]

Saying that statistics are "intellectually dishonest" because one company took such a step to lower barriers of entry and other didn't, is simply not a reasonable thing to say.

Not reasonable?

It's perfectly reasonable. It's not a valid comparison to compare one device to 25 to determine the success of 25. If Apple sold 25 iPhones and there are 25 competitors, each of them selling one device isn't a starting point for saying "Android is catching iOS" without noting the large discrepancy in the number of handsets made. Not one single Android device comes close to iOS. Not even in the ball park. When you add up the total of a large number, of course it's going to be better.

Ideally, the stats should be presented in their entirety. Instead, they're being presented by people trying to turn the mobile phone OS market into a horse race. It isn't.

Let me flip things on you. When Windows Mobile still mattered a few years ago, dopes were touting how many more Windows Mobile devices were being sold. Words like "variety" and "choice" were the mantra. Apple was the laughable little boy. Now Microsoft is clamoring to get anything back into the mobile market to compete with the joke of the iPhone and every time a new iPhone is released people line up for days and 2 million sell in the first week.

Which one of the two would you call a bigger success?

[jdmichal]

You still don't get it. You didn't turn anything on its head. iPhone was the bigger success than Windows Mobile after it was released, because it sold more units. Now Android is becoming the bigger success, because it's selling more units. There is nothing intellectually dishonest about that; it's the way commerce works.

And again, you are attempting to set up a strawman. This is not about device vs device. It is about platform vs platform, and currently the Android platform is the fastest growing on the basis of subscribers. You can rationalize it however you want, but that is what the numbers say. And, again, there is nothing intellectually dishonest about it.

There is something intellectually dishonest about trying to discredit the numbers by changing what is being discussed though.

EDIT: I don't really know how else to explain this to you, so hopefully this one sticks. Because I'm going home, and am not really planning on continuing to throw words at a wall. So good luck.

[Jon Westfall]

I'd jump into this... but I might be a bit biased ;) I will say however that in Spring of this year I bought both an iPhone and a Nexus One... now which one do you think is the daily driver, and which is the "backup" phone? :D

[jdmichal]

I'd jump into this... but I might be a bit biased ;) I will say however that in Spring of this year I bought both an iPhone and a Nexus One... now which one do you think is the daily driver, and which is the "backup" phone? :D

I want to be clear that I'm not really taking a side here. I actually kind of want a bunch of living, viable mobile platforms. Because that kind of activity can only be good for us, the purchasers. While I would never purchase an iPhone, it is mostly because I have what I consider irreconcilable philosophical differences with Apple. I recognize it as a great platform, just not the right one for me. And to be fair, I will probably never buy a RIMM phone for very similar reasons.

So next phone will be either Android or WP7. Right now I'm actually leaning towards WP7 based on early reviews, but I will definitely want to test-drive first.