Android Marketshare Grows While iPhone Market Shrinks

Apple’s iPhone, which has steadily risen in marketshare against most competitors, hit a bump in February, losing 3.2 percent of its marketshare, according to a Web analysis firm. By comparison, the marketshare of Android-based phones rose 8.3 percent in February.

The problem isn’t a falling interest in the iPhone, says Quantcast. At 63 percent, the iPhone has the largest piece of the Mobile Web Consumption pie, the firm said. Rather, Android phones are taking off at a much faster pace. Android’s marketshare grew 44 percent during the past quarter and almost 100 percent the past year. This is while the iPhone’s marketshare fell 4.5 percent and 10.2 percent during the same periods.

“While Apple’s market share continues to decline (remember they’re still gaining the most in absolute mobile web consumption), the competition have a long way to go before there’s a real fight on their hands,” the analysts said Thursday.

While there may not be a bare-fisted street fight underway, opposing camps certainly appear to be preparing to slug it out over market share. Yesterday, Apple announced a lawsuit against HTC, alleging the handset maker violated 20 iPhone patents. Many see the move as a proxy battle, with HTC – which makes many Android-based phones – serving as a stand-in for Google.

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[via Computerworld and Quantcast]

11 comments »

About the author

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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Gabriel
It’s because we’re all saving our coins for the iPad or the new iPhone in June!!! OR BOTH!!!!
Jeff
Gabriel’s got it.
iPhone sales are only going to slowd down from here until June.
kit
Can you say Verizon
Garrett
Why I don’t understand is how apple gets to sue HTC! Most of the infringements come from software related things, which would be suing android, but if apple sued google, I think the iPhone would die. What would it be like if iPhone didn’t have google search, YouTube, maps and gmail!!! I wouldn’t want the phone anymore! I do all my stuff thru google the way it is, I just love my MacBook
http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman
Happens every year at Spring.
http://ericl.me Eric
@Garrett, they are going after where the money is. Android is open-source
http://www.ameliemedia.com Andrea Gagliardi La Gala
For an “internal” view of Android manufacturers quotas and platform distribution, you can also have a look at our first-hand statistical research conducted on 1300 Android devices in 10-days period from Feb 23, 2010 to Mar 3, 2010.
The research is published at:
http://home.ameliemedia.com/android-market-share/
Robert Gere
The real test will be a few months after Android phones are available on the AT&T network and then looking at market trends within that service carrier. Android phones are the first serious smartphone mass market competitor to the iPhone and much of the accelerated adaption could easily have been Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile customers, unable or unwilling to use AT&T, perceiving Android OS phones may be worth the cost of a data plan.
Cowicide
I hope everything Apple slows in marketshare for several reasons. I don’t think Apple will continue to innovate as well as it does if they continue to lose their underdog status – and I like it when my competitors use Windows because it puts them at a disadvantage to me business-wise.
Cowicide
Also, is it just me or does Ed Sutherland’s graphical avatar photo there at the bottom of his post make you shriek like a little girl and push away your laptop from you?
dewind
Competition is a good thing.