'iPhone vs Android' report finds Apple has three times Google's market share
By Vlad Savov 
posted June 5th 2010 3:34PM
posted June 5th 2010 3:34PM
Other intriguing figures include a high rate of loyalty among iPhone OS and Android users, with 80 percent of the former and 70 percent of the latter expressing a preference for the same OS in their next phone -- both rather shaming Microsoft and RIM's numbers, which were a mediocre 34 and 47 percent, respectively. Funnily enough, despite its inflammatory title, this report finds Android and iPhone users are more similar to each other than anyone else -- an uncomfortable fact for both parties to deal with, we're sure. The source link contains some more demographic comparisons, so why not go check them out and drop some sage analysis for us in the comments?
@iPaul
When has Apple ever tried to be edgy? Then again I'm from the East Coast so I don't get the whole "trying" thing.
Like we can trust this?
P.S. this pie is only true for the USA.
Good like finding the Apple phone on a chart of any country n Europe where over a billion people call home :)
@DrScope
Actually there are and Apple are way ahead of Android in Europe at the moment. Android are doing well but there's a lot of ground to make up yet.
@DrScope Global statistics of Smart Phone use. Nokia 39.3%, RIM 19.4%, Apple 16.1%. No one else over 5% (Google not in top 5).
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/apple-iphone-smartphone-market-share-surges-rim-slips/34181
@d0mth0ma5
Not quite - these are smartphone sales, not smartphone use.
@DrScope
Are you mad? I'm from Slovakia and I study in Austria and I kid you not, almost every other phone I see in peoples hands in Vienna is an iPhone. It's crazy. I would say that over 50% of all cell phones in Vienna are iPhones.
The situation is also similiar in Slovakia, although Slovakia is not as rich as Austria. Still, you can look around in a bus or tram, and at least 10 - 20% have an iPhone.
When I was in USA last summer, I could barely see anyone using an iPhone.
@MarkAnderson My mistake, but smartphone sales show where the trend is heading, and it's heading in Nokia, RIM and Apple's direction if it isn't there already (which I think it is).
@d0mth0ma5
Perhaps. Have a look at Tomi Ahonen's posts on the Communities Dominate Brands blog. Some good insights there even if you don't agree with everything he writes.
@MarkAnderson, convenient timing on this report considering what's happening Monday..
@MarkAnderson
I wish there were more Android phones released over here in Europe/Britain - the two latest phones over here are the Motorola Milestone and the HTC Hero. The HERO, dammit!
@The Madman HTC Desire is available on all 5 networks...
@The Madman
au contraire, Blackadder!
Check out the HTC Legend and Desire. Trusted Reviews has the Desire as the UK's best smartphone at the mo.
@mmhardky
come to Seattle they are nearly ubiquitous.
@d0mth0ma5
Your stats are dealing with the actual phones and not the OSes. I'm pretty sure that Motorola uses the Android OS in all of their new smartphones. Not to mention HTC, who has many popular Android devices (with some Win Mo too).
The article you posted is irrelevant. Android is not a smartphone vendor, it's an OS.
@DrScope
Although Nielsen has recently been accused of unreliable data accumulation:
http://www.independent.ie/business/media/media-agencies-losing-trust-in-nielsen-for-supply-of-critical-data-2047454.html
I would still be amazed if Android was anywhere near the iphone OS in terms of market saturation. The key figures are the market share percentage increase, where Android is doing incredibly well. I expect that the new iphone will increase Apple's share this year, but all in all the winner is the consumer - two companies really pushing each other to produce a great end-user experience.
@mmhardky
Not many people I know have the iPhone, they want it, but it costs entirely too much on AT&T.
@Someguyperson My post was in response to DrScope who said that Apple didn't sell outside of Europe. Apple only use the iPhone OS, ergo my point was valid to his post.
@The Madman Yeah, the Desire is a known phone over in Europe. It's widely available.
@The Madman
Samsung Galaxy S will be out on June 15th-17th in the UK and 25th of June in Germany.
And it won't be out in the US for a while...
@The Madman yeh that's one thing that sucks. Another is how hardlies anyone knows what android is. I have like 2 people in my school who know what it is. But everyone knows what the iPhone is ! And to be honest the iPhone is going to appeal to the mass Market because not many people care about multitasking on a phone or if it has a 1GHz snapdragon. But people want apps and games.
@DrScope
Replace Microsoft with Android at the end of this year. Android WILL RULE the world in 2011.
@DrScope
"Like we can trust this?"
the words of an android fanboy in denial.
@Beatnik
I live in Central America in a little country called Panama, maybe I am one of the few owners of an Android phone (I ordered my Nexus One in U.S.A.), even the salesmen dont know what Android is when I ask them, well we in Latin America are always late in tech (we are poor countries) and NOKIA is the KING in this region and having iphone or android phones is a luxury.
But the interesting part is that Android is growing at an incredible rate every day, when brands like motorola, htc, acer, lg, samsung, sony-ericsson, and others , start releasing entry level android phones and well priced, Nokia will start to lose market as well all the other brands. In my opinion this year 2010, Android will be known in every little part of this planet, 2011 is the year for Android and 2012 THE END (joke).
@SomePerson Why the hell was I down ranked to oblivion? I was making a statement and ended it with sarcasm to satire the comments here on Engadget. Some of you guys honestly do not know what sarcasm means.
@DrScope Its all about momentum, and the momentum has clearly shifted to Android in a Big way in the last 6 months. Before the Droid launched Android struggled to have 2% marketshare. The growth since there has been a wide variety of high end handsets on every carrier has been meteoric. And seeing as the HTC Evo 4G is completely selling out everywhere, there is no sign that this trendline is slowing down any time soon.
Jobs acted non-chalant because he has too. He see's the movement away from his platform and has to work hard to create the impression that iPhone is still "it". But "It", it is not.
@MarkAnderson
A lot of people disagree with Tomi but he tends to almost always be spot and correct. I ordered one of his books and plan on ordering another one. He definitely has insight and he backs up his claims by research and hard numbers. His trends always plays out.
Most people commenting on the mobile phone race aren't doing so for facts or truths or understanding. They are doing it to support their brands.
I follow him especially because he comments and predicts globally rather than locally. A lot of what we know now was pioneered by him and his staff & their research from back in the days.
@McPOW
Pure speculation.
@DrScope
Q1-2009
Android = 7%
iPhone = 26%
26% / 7% = 3.71 (Apple share compared to Android)
Q1-2010
Android = 9%
iPhone = 28%
28% / 9% = 3.11 (Apple share compared to Android)
The data shows that Android is growing FASTER than iPhone.
Sorry Engadget, but if you bought into the misinformation that CNET was spewing, you're guilty of not using the space between your ears.
@The Madman
Ehm, here in Sweden we recently got HTC Desire. I'm quite surpriced that you have not :O
@d0mth0ma5
That is manufacture statistics, not OS statistics. If you count only manufacturer, Motorola is in the top 5 mainly because of its Droid.
@jakey Not globally it isn't. The Droid is big in the US, it isn't as large outside.
@MarkAnderson
yeah, cause that's assuming no one uses the phones they buy?
Let's be real now....
@DrScope Guess which country is responsible for the most phones purchased you dope.
@Someguyperson
iPhone OS is an OS, RIM is an OS, Symbian is an OS, WinMo is an OS, Android is an OS.
All these OS's are on a variety of phone models from a number of different manufacturers.
Your point?
@Cold Dead Fingers
I don't know. But you didn't say smartphones or mobile phones. Probably the biggest market is China. If it isn't it will be, faster than any of these playtime stats for fanboi headlines.
So thread.. Why do any of you want android or iPhone os or any of them to conquer completely? Too young to remember what happened last time everyone thought that was a great idea?
Don't we all just want our chosen OS to keep selling units in a tough competitve environment so that the parent company will keep developing in a meaningful way. The other two options are they give up (not selling enough) or get lazy (selling too much).
It's not in android users interest to "win", better Google and Apple are kept a bit hungry.
My preferred situation would be where it's a 3 or 4 way split with % points shifting a bit with each new release then shifting back when the next one is. Then these piece meal upgrader tech companies will put an effort in.
Fight for us, not for them!
@DrScope why would You say something like that on a flamebate article like this without doing some research first.
@DrScope "Like we can trust this?" Yes.. let's all distrust data that goes against what we like. Utterly pathetic behavior. At least stick by what you like based on it's merits. You know, just because something is behind in market share doesn't mean it's inferior, so there's no need to go all fanboy on us.
This report was corroborated by a biased, loyal Appleton who works for CNET (CBS) and runs an all Apple blog site. Not to mention, Nielsen are money grubbing data (miners) grabbers who spy on us everyday mostly in ways we will never know about. Just because this guy jizzes his pants at any attempt to knock Android doesn't give it validity. It especially (re: Apple Fanladyboys) doesn't mean Android's demise. Just get over the fact that no one cares you have an iPhone anymore and showing off your apps doesn't mean that you're too cool for school.
@McPOW I hate to burst your bubble but only people like us care about stats like 1 ghz processors and the like. People want apps and maybe to us (especially me) believe that android is far superior (depends on the phone really) to the iphone. I see so many elderly people that have iPhones and it will still be a long time until that changes. These stats just prove this. Android has grown at leaps and bounds starting with the Droid and the incredible and evo will continue that here in the states. Phones like the desire are huge in Europe and I read an article recently that stated that it was this years number one phone. (Ill try to find source and I could be a little off on the specifics.) Android will get there but I bbelieve that these OS will live side by side. Apple and its iconic iphone will continue to sell very well even if android sees 100k activations everyday. People know What the iPhone is and people (atleast that I have seen) no more about Droid than they Do android. If the iPhone does go to other providers in the states like they do all around the world then it will continue to grow. Until then we will continue to root android along (atleasy I will) but if you think for a second that the iphone is just going to fall off the world because of Android you sir are very wrong.
@Cold Dead Fingers That would be China then India now who's the idiot? Every chinise child wants a mobile that's why it's a good time to invest in China Mobile.
@d0mth0ma5 On a global bases Nokia would definately be way ahead. Europeans use Nokia phones A LOT. Here in America it's RIM, iPhone, and WinMo as you can see
@d0mth0ma5 Uh, considering Google isn't a hardware manufacturer for the purposes of this comparison, while Apple is in fact being deemed a hardware manufacturer, you're comparing apples to oranges. HTC is clearly an Android fanboy, and they're one of the crapton of manufacturers that form a conglomerate you might call the "Google" you reference and kiss Apple's ass goodbye when you do THAT math.
@d0mth0ma5 If you made this assumption two years ago, then you'd be effectively saying the same thing every two years. Quid pro quo, there would be no iphone Market penetration either. Clearly, things change. The obvious point is that Android has made pretty significant gains in the last 6 - 12 months, edging out many other formats and operating systems especially in early 2010.
I'm always stunned simply by the news on gadget sites. If you take a random day on Engadget and scan through the news stories... it always seems like four or five of the stories on the first couple pages are about some new android handset, version, or app.
@mmhardky
I was just in Bratislava and Vienna a couple of months ago with my iPhone - from San Francisco (Actually Palo Alto). The service there was incredible. I used my iPhone to navigate around both towns, looking stuff up on Wikipedia along the way. It was an amazing trip, and yes, I did see a ton of iPhones in both places.
One major difference between Bratislava and the San Francisco Bay Area is that people in Bratislava will return iPhones they find to their rightful owners (at least from my fortunate experience at a hostel in Bratislava).
Anyway, I loved both places. Cheers!
@Someguyperson He is comparing iPhone OS to Android OS smart guy. PC market share is still high because of guys like you. What a ret...
@Fragmented Android a hacked together OS? haha... What kind of drugs are you on? Android unlike iPhone OS is a completely ground up built OS that was incorporated in 2003 by Andy Rubin. At that time Andy was saying publicly that phones should be more personal preference aware. Location Awareness was phrase coined by him back then.
That was over a year before Apple started the 30month development cycle of the iPod combo phone (iPhone), when then hired their first Touch Screen Engineer. Apple then stole HTC and Elan's Touch Screen design features from iPaq Pocket PC Phone the fact that Andy had already started designing Android as a Touch Screen Based OS. The first Touch Screen Smartphone? Yes... iPaq!
Remember too.... that Google saw what Andy was doing way before buying them in 2005. Everyone knew that Google would eventually Open Source Android and give it away to an Alliance of manufacturers and service providers that now includes over 70 members. With names like Intel, Google, Nvidia, ARM, Motorola, Toshiba, NEC, Samsung, T-Mobile, Sprint, etc!
With all of these companies contributing, Android OS (Open Handset Alliance) is following in the footsteps of Khronos Group w/ OpenGL ES. The single largest distributed set of API's in the World! Android... where all your Choices are OPEN with no prison walls to jail break! ;)
btw... Android even runs on iPhones and iPads now, dual booting no less with FLASH on Android! haha....
@The Madman And the Streak just came out (before America) on O2.
@gerrrg You do know that the smaller the market share, the quicker the acceleration is? This is normal to a certain point.
Yes Android is selling, but can it sustain this growth once its market share hits double digits? We will see.
still love me some androids... numbers be damned
@skyblaze Same here, I could care less about the market, I just care about what I own.