Android Passes BlackBerry In US Market Share

An anonymous reader writes "69.5 million people in the US owned smartphones during the three months ending in February 2011, up 13 percent from the preceding three-month period. For the first time, more Americans are using phones running Google's Android operating system than Research In Motion's BlackBerry, according to comScore. Having passed the iPhone in the preceding three-month period, this now means that Android has been crowned king in the US."

This is a no-brainer.

[pro151]

Google knew what they were doing when they developed the android platform and even more so when they made it as open as they did. I am a broken record when it comes to Google and Android and make no apology for being so. I have never failed to get timely responses from Google support and excellent answers as far as I am concerned. RIM has lost sight of the game when it comes to smart phones and will fade fast if they do not get their head out of their rear. Google is Skynet and I am an Andriod Borg. Microslop and the Rotten Apple should be afraid, very afraid.

It's just a rehash of the PC world of the 1980s!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all just a rehash of the PC industry during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Back then, Apple had their proprietary hardware and software stack, and it did achieve a relatively high level of popularity, at least initially. There were other smaller players, like Amiga, Commodore and Tandy back then, and RIM and Nokia today, who offered their own platforms.

Android is best compared to MS-DOS, oddly enough. It was about being a flexible OS that ran on a wide range of hardware from a wide range of vendors, and in many ways it maximized the freedom of developers and users alike. It did very little to dictate how programs could be implemented, who may use them, and how they may be distributed.

We all know what happened. The most open of the platforms prevailed, and the rest were basically crushed into obscurity. Most went completely out of business. Apple, by far the strongest of them, only barely managed to survive the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s.

I suspect that the same thing might be happening today. Although not the first, Apple took a commanding lead within the market. But facing competition from more open hardware and software, they don't have a hope in hell of surviving in the long run. It remains to be seen what will happen with Jobs in the near future, but if he departs from Apple for whatever reason, it's likely that they'll face yet another dark period like that between 1987 and 1999.

Re:This is a no-brainer.

[Darkness404]

The reason why Blackberry is losing marketshare is because Android is taking over Blackberry's non-key markets. A lot of people used to have Blackberries because they were the cheapest smartphone you could get. If you were with Sprint or Verizon and didn't want to get a Windows Mobile smartphone, BlackBerry was your only option until Android really took over. And even on T-Mobile and AT&T, a Blackberry cost a lot less than a G1 or iPhone.

Really, RIM made Blackberries for people who use their enterprise system, and for corporate people who check their e-mail every 5 seconds, and not as the general purpose smartphones that Android and iOS devices are. So when Android started gaining marketshare, it made sense for the people who simply got a Blackberry because it was cheap and had a Facebook app and a browser to migrate to Android.

Re:Surprised?

[Karlt1]

I think it might be better to consider that The Apple app market saw over 17x the sales of the Android Market last year.....
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20032012-37.html [cnet.com]

Re:Surprised?

[poetmatt]

Your comment makes no sense at all, and is a sidetrack to the issue.

If we add up all the iphones and all the android phones, the answer is simple and straightforward: android is selling more, and the market has spoken. It doesn't matter if iphone creates 7 models or 100. It's still a "who sells the most of the major brand", and that has been answered. It's not MS, it's not apple, it's google.

Re:Surprised?

[ducomputergeek]

I saw it personally with a couple small apps I built and released for iPhone and Android. Despite more downloads of the free version on androids, over 85% of my sales were for iPhone. Given the time tweaking for the different versions of Android vs iOS, the apps I'm building this year are all for the iPhone.

Market share != user share...

[msauve]

The summary makes the mistake of confusing market share (sales) with installed base ("user share"). Android has had leading market share for some time, which is why their share of the installed base is increasing. CRT televisions still have a very large installed base, but a very low market share - the vast majority of new TVs are LCD/plasma. Windows 2000 still has a significant installed base, but almost zero market share.

Re:Surprised?

[VortexCortex]

If I were choosing to develop for a platform, why would I choose one with only 5% of the sales?

Actually... I was presented with the choice of developing our apps for Apple's Application Store, or Google's Android Marketplace. Not really liking the choice much we opted for the 3rd choice: Distribute the application ourselves and in one of the proprietary marketplaces. So, naturally the application will be an Android application.

Granted, our applications are more specialized for use by noise abatement engineers, mapping problematic sources of noise via triangulation, overlaying 3D sound models in real-time (altered reality), etc.

Our apps will be supplemental to our other products. We didn't want to spend time making the apps, then not be able to sell them for whatever reason. Our only real choice is Android OS.

They've relegate Android to the bargain bin.

Yes, that means our mobile applications will be available to more people. Also, why would a developer take so much pride in a platform brand? We don't make more money based on who sells the best phones -- We make more money based on how many people can access and purchase our apps...

However, you must be able to see that sales alone is not the sole deciding factor when a developer decides which mobile platform to support... There are many factors, one of which is "Are we sure that we'll even be able to sell the app at all?" Android is the only smart-phone platform where the answer to this question is Yes.