Android Takes Hold of the Smartphone Market
Google, the owners of the Android platform, have released figures of the firm powering 50.1% of all smartphones in the US. While we here in the UK are wooed by Apple’s products, it’s an astonishing figure for One company to have over the rest of the smartphone operating systems. Already dominating so many markets, particularly the search engine variety, Google is seemingly unstoppable when it comes to enticing smartphone users over to their platform. The news comes as Samsung released quarterly figures of £3.2bn for the first three months of 2012, which obviously has had an effect on Google’s standing in the marketplace.
Since the final quarter of 2011, the Android market share rose from 46.9% to more than 50%, which shows just how popular Samsung phones were over the festive period in the USA. The increase is almost bang on the money compared to Blackberry’s market shares, showing that RIM (Research in Motion the makers of Blackberry phones) is falling dramatically in the smartphone world – where it once used to dominate.
Apple’s iOS 5 continues to take the second spot to Google’s Android operating system and has 30.2% market share; a figure set to change when the iPhone 5 is released later this year but it will be competing with the Samsung Galaxy S3. Microsoft’s Windows Phones dropped from 5.2% to 3.9% of the US market share but the latest Lumia 800 and 900 phones could well see that figure pop back up over the next quarter.
It’s interesting news that Google has finally tipped over the 50% mark for the smartphone market share, but could the patent law battle between Apple and Samsung be dampening the confidence in Apple’s products? It seems that more people want Samsung products as they are so readily released with new updates and fresh, innovative ideas whereas we have to wait at least 12 months for a new iPhone and the iPhone 5 has actually been waiting in the wings for 18 months or more. The iPhone 4S is a tremendous phone that has captured many people’s hearts but memories must be short as it was meant to be the new iPhone and not just a tweak in design and function. It was meant to be a completely different phone. We’ll have to wait and see when Apple finally launches it but could it be too late. Samsung has the market in its clutches and boasts sales figures of more than five million units per month, which could suggest that the iPhone and Apple’s products are on a downward slope.
Over the final quarter for 2011, there was a 14% increase in smartphone owners in the US and a 17% increase in Android’s market share, which tells its own story that people are shifting to Android phones and it’s mainly Samsung ones!
Whatever the legal matters are between Apple and Samsung, for Apple’s sake in the market they need to be smoothed over as quickly as possible as it’s affecting the sales and if they announce a new phone then they should release it soon after, not let consumers wait more than a year!