We have heard guesses, suggestions and rumors for some time that the run rate for Android was about to go ahead of the iPhone, but with a rise in US Android shipment rates of 851% over this time last year, Android is definitively ahead. Globally the shipments have risen by even more at 886% but given that all the early Androids were sold in the US, the 851% figure is the more impressive, starting from a much higher installed base.
The result of this will be a radical change in priorities for application developers for handsets. Going Android Market is the way to reach a much larger number of people, as of now.
Overall the US smart phone market grew by just 41% measured in units with Android devices now accounting for 34% of sales, overtaking RIM and Apple for the top spot. Canalys particularly singled out Verizon’s aggressive promotion of its Droid range, the latest flagships being the HTC Incredible and Motorola Droid X. With 14.7 million units sold, RIM was still the biggest individual vendor, with 32% share, ahead of Apple on 21.7% and HTC on 14.4%, combining Android and Windows Mobile sales.
Android also did well in China, which has become the world’s second largest smartphone market. Nokia continues to lead this market by a huge margin, and Symbian handsets have a 77% market share, but then came Android, which shipped almost 475,000 units in the country during Q2 from almost a standing start. Motorola and Samsung benefited most, says Canalys, with 4.7% and 4.1% share respectively. Total shipments were 6.9 million.
Worldwide, shipments of smartphones were up by 64% in the second quarter as the devices reached down to the mass market and became a steadily larger percentage of the total handset base.
“Expect to see smartphones accounting for a growing proportion of the wider mobile phone market as they become increasingly affordable to more customers,” Canalys senior analyst Pete Cunningham said. “By 2013, smart phones will grow to represent over 27% of shipments worldwide, with the proportion in some developed markets in Western Europe surpassing 60%, and 48% in North America.”
Another survey, from Nielsen, also showed Android overtaking Apple in the strongest market for both systems (because of Nokia’s virtual no-show). New smartphone subscribers choosing Android handsets accounted for 27% of the US total in Q2, said the firm, compared to 23% for Apple. However, iPhone users are more loyal – 89% of owners would stick with the brand for their next purchase, says Nielsen, compared to 71% for Android. While this study credits RIM with 33% smartphone share in the US, about half of BlackBerry owners want to move to Android or Apple when they upgrade, putting even more pressure on the just announced BlackBerry 6.0 release.