Apple #1 US phone manufacturer, RIM enters top 5 worldwide, Motorola feels the burn
By Joseph L. Flatley 
posted April 30th 2010 2:01PM
posted April 30th 2010 2:01PM
Apple, love it or lump it, has seen some big numbers lately: one million App Store apps downloaded, ten billion iTunes, and now it looks like the company can claim to be the number one phone maker in the US. According to Forbes, Apple sold 8.8 million iPhones in the first quarter, as opposed to 8.5 million mobile devices sold by Motorola -- quite a slide when you figure that four years ago the company moved something like 46.1 million in Q1. If that ain't enough to give Motorola pause, industry analysts IDC have issued a report stating that, while the mobile phone industry continues to recover (growing almost 22 percent in Q1) Motorola has been knocked out of the top five worldwide mobile vendors by RIM. We guess the next question is, will Motorola's all-Android, all-the-time strategy be enough to bring it back into the big leagues?
@jdm28690
Apple is for idiots? I'd like to see the quantative data you're using to make that statement. Please show me the study where this was determined, thanks.
@Jack well then, there must be a lot of us idiots out there. Since 9 out of the 10 documentaries nominated for an Oscar® were edited using FCP Studio. Same goes for the Coen brothers, Soderbergh, Walter Murch, yeah these are some really idiotic people. Please go back to your video game and lets us idiots do some real work with our computers.
@Jack Sorry, didn't see the "?". Who said Apple is for idiots?
@commonman He wasn't replying to mps, he was replying to jdm28690, who was the one saying "Apple is for idiots".
@commonman jdm28690's been on a troll-roll today. I wouldn't be surprised if he caught the ban-hammer
@N900
yeah sorry about the misplaced comment - I wasn't replying to mps, but you know the engadget comment system.
only 8.8 million? not in the billions? you can do better then that, apple!
@zevobh It is interesting considering the 3GS brought us the following:
3MP with *video recording* as opposed to 2MP camera.
Voice control
A compass.
I realize us geeks know you can accomplish some of this with the 3G model, but to John Q. Public (who doesn't understand).. it's a different story.
I wonder how many of these were 3G -> 3GS upgrades. Of those upgrades, I wonder how many were for the Video Recording and Compass (by the same John Q. Public who didn't understand the first time).
@Mr Blue
3gs is much snappier than 3g. That was the primary advantage
@Mr Blue you forgot 3gs got a MUCH FASTER CPU. I can't even describe how much my firends 3gs is faster than my 3g.
@Mr Blue
The 3GS performs vastly better than the 3G. It has double the RAM and an A8 processor. It's a pretty big upgrade, despite what some of you people think.
I recently used a 3G and couldn't believe how big of a difference there was with my 3GS.
@ssgadget Um, no.
Please, no.
@ssgadget
ROFL COPTER
iwndrsf
yep
Let the hating and "Android will kill Apple" statements begin. Just try to remember that Apple is a moving target. Palm thought they would kill Apple with the Pre, and then Apple released the 3GS. And look what happened to Palm.
Most of all, remember that Apple outsold everybody else with a SINGLE PHONE. More than every Motorola phone COMBINED. Just saying.
@Jack I just hate Apple. Even though they offer a decent phone, I dislike their practices and the amount of control they have over how content is delivered and sold to you and put on their hardware (mostly pertaining to the iPhone/iPod).
Popularity is never an indicator of how nice something is (for me), otherwise I'd be stuck with a Ford F150, eating all brand-name foods, and have lunch and dinner every day at McDonalds due to 'xx billions of burgers sold'
@Accidental
At the same time, if the iPhone weren't a good product people would have stopped buying it. Instead, Apple is selling more and more of them every quarter. Popularity in and of itself is not enough. If a product sucks, nobody's going to buy it. Clearly the overwhelming consensus is that the iPhone doesn't suck.
I'm not sure exactly what you have a problem with regarding Apple's "practices", but you make it sound like Apple is the only place to get content for the iPhone, which couldn't be farther from the truth. I put stuff on mine from whatever source I feel like.
@Jack
Android is on track, it has been a success so far and it hasn't been around for 4 years, unlike Apple.
@jdm28690
Android is only around BECAUSE of Apple. Regardless, this article is about phone sales, not OS market share, even though Apple is also still very far ahead of Android in share.
@Accidental
"I dislike their practices and the amount of control they have over how content is delivered and sold to you and put on their hardware (mostly pertaining to the iPhone/iPod). "
As a platform owner don't you have that right?
Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo do the same for game developers and no one complains.
In fact if they didn't and you got a one size fits all binary, no Wii games would have motion control, no xbox games would have live and no PS3 games would be in high def. That's bad for everyone.
I'm assuming that this is in reference to Adobe not being able to build to the iPhone.. and here's an example of why Apple ought to assert their right to control the application development platform: A simple "Hello World" flash Application done in CS5 published to the iPhone takes up to 8MB of memory. Apple _should_ kill stuff like that if for no other reason than to protect the stability and efficiency of the platform.
(ref: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/04/adobe-flash-jobs/)
@jdm28690
Look at this liar, iphone was selling 2007 and the first Android phone was in 2008 a year later. Where is all this 4 years bull?
@Jack
Google doesn't sell android Jacka$$. You might as well check the market share and see Android is sky rocketing
@Jack
Sure, you can put what ever you want on it, but you're still restricted to iTunes. Its not like you can just mount your iPhone as an external device and drag and drop media on it (e.g. Android and WinMo) But, that aside, you and accidental are probably in two different demographics. Accidental probably like openness and tweaking where as you just want a product that works (Apple's primary target)
@nothingreal
"flash Application done in CS5 published to the iPhone takes up to 8MB of memory"
Holy wow 8mb ? if that was 10 years ago id say you're right but come on the iPhone has 256MB to begin with. Steve jobs is an idiot who apparently has no idea what he's talking about, he's good to brainwash people like you, seriously has he got any idea i mean it's cool to mock other companies because of his insecurities, but he never shows facts. greedy, liar, communist, dictator, old man that's what he is.
@Dr K Nkrumah
No the 1st android device was the g1 released in December 2008 in American and in January 2009 Europe and Aus.
@jdm28690 You are so full of hate over a tech company. Why? None of this is serious business, just companies competing for the consumers' money. Why are you so bent out of shape over this?
@nothingreal
I don't understand your comment at all. No one said Apple didn't have the right. Accidental just said they weren't going to support their business practices. There is no room for an argument here. If a company wants to decide what's best for me, then I am going to buy products elsewhere. It is as simple as that. No argument needed.
@jdm28690
What a stupid dummy, the G1 was released in October of 2008, the first iphone was released in July of 2007 which is around a year in time span.
@N900
Stating facts is not hate
@jdm28690 "greedy, liar, communist, dictator, old man that's what he is. "
Don't sound like facts to me, dude.
@Dr K Nkrumah
You're actually right about the g1 but you're wrong about the iPhone, it was released in June 2007. G1(Dream) wasn't released in Europe until June 2009.
@Jack A single phone very very simple to use ... even animals can use Apple products.
That doesn't mean that smart people should use it;)
With iPhone OS 4 bringing folders, wallpapers and "multi-task", it's gonna be less simple to use an iPhone ;)
@Jack Apple releasing the 3GS really didn't hurt Palm much. Palm hurt Palm by it's off the wall advertising, releasing only via Sprint, and Verizon's release of the Droid.
@Niazac I agree and I totally support voting with your wallet.
my point is simply that the premise (in my opinion) is flawed. I like the idea of a platform holder controlling the platform - it adds value and fights commoditization which ultimately benefits the developer and the consumer.
reasonable minds can disagree of course.
@gpmoo7
That's a terrible argument. Should these alleged "smart people" also use a hand crank to start their cars, because an electronic ignition makes it too easy? Should we all have to compile our own apps because the developers doing it for us is too easy? Should we keep our food in a block of ice in the garage because a refrigerator makes it too easy?
What you're not understanding here is that Apple makes products that give you the same usefulness that you need, while making them easier to use. Apple didn't remove the ability to make a conference call, they simply made it easier to do by creating an interface that was very clear about how to do it. That is why so many people want them, not because people who like Apple products are stupid.
@PBB
To address this, you say "restricted to iTunes" but why does that matter if you can still put anything you want on the phone? Isn't that what matters? Not the method by which it gets done?
Before I go on a cross country trip I load my phone up with movies. None of which are bought from iTunes. I either rip them myself or get them from... other sources. Why does it matter than I use iTunes to transfer them to the phone rather than mounting the phone as a drive and copying them over?
It doesn't. It doesn't matter even in the slightest. All that matters is that the iPhone is perfectly compatible with everything I want to put on it, and Quicktime will even convert media like that - from any source and in a multitude of formats - to iPhone format, which simply means reduced data and resolution to match the iPhone's display. Which is exactly what I want for watching movies on the iPhone.
I would want that for ANY phone. I don't need a full size DVD rip on a Droid if the screen can't display the data at its full resolution. That would be stupid. The bottom line is that no matter how restrictive you think Apple's products/ecosystem is, I can still do everything I want to do without needing to do anything extra.
I hope you guys realize Jack and K Nkrumah are the same guys that were around last time during the last Apple earnings post that were trying to bait people using the "Android killing Apple" strawman/terminology. Killing implies that Android will eat all of Apple's sales, which is unlikely to happen. Even the most deluded fanboy should be able to see the iPhone OS is here to stay.
What we argue will eventually happen is Android overtakes iPhone OS sales (assuming the patent maneuvers by Apple and Microsoft aren't as effective as they hope). Android is just slowly beginning the move to netbooks, tablets, televisions, and set-top boxes. It'll be very hard to keep track of sales for all of these categories, but I think the variety illustrates the potential of Android.
As for Motorola sales this quarter, I'm not surprised given they don't really have any exciting phones in terms of dumb phones, and the only worthwhile Android phone they have is pretty much the Droid (the Cliq is meh, and the Backflip sucks because of all the AT&T crippling). As a more general Android remark, I predict HTC will do very well in the coming quarters with the release of a few major phones. The only (fairly large) missing link in Android in terms of the US is on AT&T (which I am currently on, and I realize some Android phones are coming but they are all low spec so far and/or crippled by the carrier).
As a general note I wanted to say the tone of this article is a way different from the source which is titled: "Motorola posts profit, strong sales;stock jumps". Basically it says Android is driving Motorola's recovery (they did a lot worst without Android).
@jakey
I don't think you know what a straw man is. Why would you assume I'm making the whole "android will kill Apple" thing up? Are you new to the Engadget comment section or something? The FANdroids here have been saying Android is going to kill Apple for the last month or so.
And you're obviously underestimating just how deluded the FANdroids are, since a good number of them do appear to believe that Android will actually put Apple out of the phone business completely.
@Jack Android is actually an evolutionary OS for Linux that actually pre-dates the Apple iPhone. Lookup the Linux Green phone, you know the Linux research mobile phone with such features as a sliding unlock, home screen, bright icons on a black background, kinetic menu's, if you had never seen it you would call it an iPhone clone UI, one problem, the Linux Green phone predates the iPhone by 4 years. Yes just as Apple ripped off Xerox they ripped of the Linux Green phone UI.
@MrLinux
... who said anything about any of that? Besides you? Oh right, nobody. Thanks, Captain Non-Sequitur. As far as Xerox and Apple, you should probably educate yourself on that. Xerox was given the option to buy pre-IPO Apple stock for allowing Apple to visit the PARC facility, see their GUI and build one of their own based on what they saw.
Xerox took the deal and bought the stock, and Apple built their GUI. There was ZERO ripping off. As far as Linux, the iPhone OS is based on OS X. Did you not know that? So unless you're prepared to claim OS X is also "ripped off" from Linux, you don't really have a point here.
@Jack
...Really? OSX? Which has Unix underpinnings? Just like Linux?
The iPhone OS uses one core part of OS X, Darwin. It's all based on Unix.
"To address this, you say "restricted to iTunes" but why does that matter if you can still put anything you want on the phone? Isn't that what matters? Not the method by which it gets done?"
Nope. iTunes doesn't recognize certain codecs. Also, iTunes on Windows is a major resource hog.
"Before I go on a cross country trip I load my phone up with movies. None of which are bought from iTunes. I either rip them myself or get them from... other sources. Why does it matter than I use iTunes to transfer them to the phone rather than mounting the phone as a drive and copying them over?"
iTunes = resource hog. Putting music and movies on isn't too bad in iTunes, but more than once I would have liked to use my iPod as a 64 gig solid state drive.
"It doesn't. It doesn't matter even in the slightest. All that matters is that the iPhone is perfectly compatible with everything I want to put on it, and Quicktime will even convert media like that - from any source and in a multitude of formats - to iPhone format, which simply means reduced data and resolution to match the iPhone's display. Which is exactly what I want for watching movies on the iPhone.
I would want that for ANY phone. I don't need a full size DVD rip on a Droid if the screen can't display the data at its full resolution. That would be stupid. The bottom line is that no matter how restrictive you think Apple's products/ecosystem is, I can still do everything I want to do without needing to do anything extra."
Congrats. You own a Mac, a copy of Quicktime, have bought into the Apple ecosystem, and are thus rewarded. You most likely bought into it because it satisfied everything you wanted from a phone and ecosystem. The question is not why, but why not? Why can't we use an iPod as a 64 gig storage device? Why can't we use other software to load movies and music (I realized the obvious answer is "to milk more money out of users").
@Jack
Actually, I think what really killed Palm is the $99 iPhone 3G. The 3GS was just the cherry on top.
@Jack
"Android is only around BECAUSE of Apple" Dude you've been drinking too much of the koolaid. Google would've jumped into the smartphone market regardless of whether Apple was in it. It's very probable that the iPhone accelerated Android's development, but that in no way minimizes what the Android team has accomplished. You probably believe that they copied crApple... well guess what, Apple stole tons of ideas in building their iPhone. What they did do was create a very good solution with a nice UI.
@nothingreal "it is because the iPhone SDK license restricts interpreters, you can not JIT code (Just In Time compilation) or interpret any bytecode into a VM (wether it is the Java VM, or the ActionScript VM) Apple does not allow you to do that, period.
so sure an "hello world" example should just take few Ks
but when you have to do compilation ahead of time (AOT)
and inline the flash interpreter runtime to obtain an ARM binary
so you can run this ARM code without interpreting any bytecode at runtime you end up with a minimum 8MB binary
the 8MB size is Apple fault, not Adobe"
Well Motorola hasn't released anything interesting since the RAZR, so it makes sense. And RIM surpassed them only because Moto dropped so far that they passed RIM on the way down.
It will be interesting to see the HTC numbers a year form now.
@Locuus
Have you heard of something called the Droid.
Sold more units than the iPhone on the same period.
@Locuus
That is simply incorrect. According to the IDC numbers RIM grew 45.2% year over year and they sold an additional 3.3 million phones.
@Locuus
It's just unbelievable how brainwashed some people are about RIM being in trouble and dying.
Top 5 according to IDC:
1- Nokia YOY change +15.7%
2- Samsung +40.1%
3- LG +19.9%
4- RIM +45.2%
5- Sony Ericsson -27.6%
@Locuus RIM is doing great. As already mentioned they had a 45% increase in sales this last year, and they are actually tied with Sony for 4th place in world wide sales. Apple is doing good, but the reason they're the top US manufacturer is because they are basically the only US manufacturer (RIM is Canadian). Everyone is still playing catch-up to Nokia though; 107.8 million phones sold in the first quarter this year . . . THATS a lot of phones.
@baltwade motorola is american.
@palomosan
Point taken - I forgot about the Droid, but still it is a recent phone, so the gap between RAZR and Droid is still pretty large and can account for a lot of market lost.
About RIM doing good - yes they are doing good. What I meant was that Motorola got passed by RIM, because Moto dropped from 45% marketshare and not because RIM increased theirs to over 45%.
In other words it is more Moto's fault for being surpassed, and not all RIM's merit.