iPhone growth

With so many new iOS and OS X features being introduced in yesterday’s WWDC keynote, the numbers that kicked off the show perhaps didn’t get the attention they otherwise might have done.

While the Wall Street line is that the smartphone market is saturated and iPhone and iPad growth is done, Tim Cook clearly thinks otherwise. Business Insider highlighted Cook’s comment on the migration Apple is seeing from Android phones.

“Over 130 million customers who bought an iOS device in the past 12 months were buying their first Apple device,” said Cook before introducing iOS 8, the new software for the iPhone and iPad. “Many of these customers were switchers from Android. They had bought an Android phone — by mistake. Then had sought a better experience … And a better life. And decided to check out iPhone and iOS.”

He added, “Nearly half of our customers in China in the past six months switch from Android to iPhone. This is incredible.”

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Photo: ibtimes.com

The latest numbers from IDC, ABI and Strategy Analytics (the latter not yet online) paint an interesting picture of where the smartphone business currently stands, and where the iPhone sits within it.

The overall picture for smartphones is, of course, strong. IDC reports:

In the worldwide smartphone market, vendors shipped 237.9 million units in 2Q13 compared to the 156.2 million units shipped in 2Q12. This represents 52.3% year-over-year-growth, the highest annual growth rate in five quarters. Second quarter shipments were up 10.0% when compared to the 216.3 million units shipped in 1Q13.

While ABI pegged the year-on-year growth at a significantly lower 44 percent, it’s clear that much of the traditional featurephone market is switching to smartphones.

The high-end also remains strong, with both the iPhone and Samsung S4 outpacing the smartphone market as a whole, though both sets of figures show iPhone growth at a long-time low … 
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