Following a report last week from IDC on smartphone market share by vendor, the research firm is out today with its report covering market share by operating system. Much like Apple’s growth had slowed on the hardware front with its second-lowest year-over-year growth rate for the iPhone in nearly four years, IDC reports that Apple is losing share to Android and Windows Phone when looking at the market by operating system.
During Q2 2013, IDC says that Apple posted a year-over-year decline dropping from 16.6% with 26 million iPhones shipped in Q2 of last year, to 13.2% of the market with 31.2 million iPhones shipped in Q1 of this year. The loss in market share is of course attributed to the lack of new product launches during the three month period, as was the case with IDC’s report on tablet market share earlier this week. But it’s also losing ground to both Android and Windows Phone, both of which increased market share and shipments year-over-year during Q2:
Android maintained its leadership position, with strong contributions from Samsung and its Galaxy S4. Not to be overlooked were LG and Chinese vendors Huawei, Lenovo, and ZTE, which each recorded double-digit shipment volumes in the millions. Combined, these vendors accounted for 62.5% of all Android-powered smartphone shipments during the quarter. Still, the remaining vendors within the Android ecosystem should not be overlooked, as many have developed a strong local presence within key developing markets.
The total of 236.4 million smartphones shipped during the quarter– an increase of 51.3% over last year– is mostly thanks to growth from Android (now at almost 80% of the market from just under 70% last year), and less so from Windows Phone growth, which picked up 3.7% of the market up from 3% last year. This quarter will likely be a much different picture if the next-generation iPhone does indeed make its expected fall launch, but with all the rumors of a low-cost iPhone, it’s worth noting that LG and the smaller Chinese Android vendors are quickly gaining share with lower-cost and prepaid options (highlighted in the chart below of Android growth).
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Don’t forget the lower rates as well. Post PC Era mean bye bye Apple.
It seems like we cant get through a week without another report of the obvious “android’s got a higher marketshare!”.
Well, at least it gives fandroids one thing to brag about.
In order to maintain growth and a growing market share, the only way to sell big volumes is to launch a new version of a phone frequently – maybe twice a year, or that’s how it seems. People wants something new all the time…
Wp8 is a joke, no games and no apps.
When there’s seemingly a new flagship Android phone being released every 3 months it’s impossible for ANY manufacturer to keep up.
In the past 6 to 9 months we’ve seen the GS 4, Note II, Tab II, HTC One, HTC One mini, 3 different Droid models, the Moto X and most recently a phone from LG. That’s nearly a dozen phones in less than a year and somehow Apple, with it’s singular product, is supposed to keep pace with that?!!
So long as Apple keeps iOS to itself it’ll NEVER match or even come close to the amount of phones being sold that have Android installed. But let us not forget that just a few weeks ago a report detailed that the iOS ecosystem is still the most profitable mobile app market on the planet and that Apple has paid out over $10 billion dollars to developers in just 5 years!! That’s insane.
But it’s like I always say, just because McDonald’s has more locations than In-N-Out doesn’t mean Mickey’s has better burgers.