Apple — not Android — has the momentum in the United States, a new study finds, and their powerhouse move was the Verizon iPhone, which flattened domestic Android growth.
New purchases of Android-based handsets hit a high mark of 27 percent when the Verizon iPhone appeared and continued at least through May, according to Nielsen. Apple, on the other hand, began at 10 percent of new buyers when 2011 began and grew to 17 percent by May, the firm announced Thursday.
Although Android maintains an overall market lead of 38 percent, the iPhone has 27 percent and is still growing. The increasing growth of the iPhone in the U.S. coupled with the leveling off for Android provides more ammunition to the theory that previous Android growth was due to the iPhone being available only from AT&T, not due to some inherent greater demand for the handsets based on Google’s software.
The belief will be tested again in September, when Apple is expected to introduce a new iPhone. The new handset could unleash a new wave of iPhone buyers, including Sprint and T-Mobile customers, potentially doubling Apple’s U.S. carrier partners to four.
BlackBerry-maker RIM is the overall loser in the race between Apple and Android. Both are taking share away from the Waterloo, Ontario-based RIM, which has just six percent of new buyers and 21 percent of the overall market. Experts question whether even the BlackBerry Bold 9900 and BlackBerry 7 handsets could help recover a loss of 25 percent of the market so far this year.
Smartphone ownership in the U.S. is gaining, the research found. Nearly 40 percent of U.S. cell phone owners now have smartphones and 55 percent of new handsets are smartphones, according to Nielsen.
Did you trade in your Android phone for a Verizon iPhone? Let us know in the comments.
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.
37 responses to “Verizon iPhone Has Turned The Table On Android”
What was holding the iPhone back? Maybe not the price, but the lack of carrier support.
Hopefully the rumors of Sprint getting the next iPhone are true. T-Mobile as well if AT&T’s purchase falls through.
One quarter worth of numbers is hardly a trend, purely speculative.
Traded my Droid X in for a Verizon iPhone
Android’s OK, but I’ll switch to iPhone and iOS when my Verizon contract is up in Oct.. I have either OS or iOS on my other devices and need more predictability. A big selling point on iOS for me is the advent of iCloud, assuming it works as advertised. A reliable iCloud rollout and implementation will sell a lot of Apple devices so I hope Apple gears up for this.
I plan to replace my droid 2 with the new iphone in september. My droid sucks ass when it comes to loading information from its own hard drive and can never seem to get through a whole text message without adding some sort of character that is not even near the buttons I pushed to make the text.
The only thing I can say for sure about my droid 2 that I can’t seem to say about the iphone (just as an observation) doesn’t is the ability to be dropped hundreds of times from 4+ feet and still manages to maintain zero cracks in the screen.
This is a silly, sophomoric competition drummed up by the media and promoted by CoM. Android is not a phone. It’s an OS. iPhone is not an OS. It’s a phone. CoM and tech media love this kind of drivel. It’s Microsoft Windows (not a PC) vs. Apple’s Mac (not an OS) all over again.
How about comparing iOS vs. Android.whatever.Device? How about comparing a specific Android-based smart phone to an iPhone?
“BlackBerry-maker RIM is the overall loser in the race between Apple and Android”
Hello? If the ‘race’ is between Apple and Android, how can RIM be the loser? Yes, they’re hurting and will continue to hurt, but it’s not much of a race when you compare a free OS to phones, now is it?
iPhones are all assumed to be running the iOS software, where as there are many different phones that can run the Android software. Take into account that Android phones are constantly being released, to compare the iPhone to any one phone wouldn’t show anything. And if you took iPads/iPods into the count, again it wouldn’t represent the cell phone market.
I for one will be trading my Blackberry Storm in for an I-Phone when it is released by Verizion.
its already out
Verizon replaced my HTC Eris so many times that they gave me a customer service upgrade. I’m glad I didn’t jump on the HTC Incredible like I was planning because the Verizon iPhone was announced a month later. Glad I waited because the iPhone 4 is amazing!!!
I am converting from an iOS to an Andrioid (3gs to Samsung Galaxy SII). Too much of good things to be missed if I stayed with iPhone.
oh yeah even though i liked my droidx when the iphone came out i was there freezing on launch day to get it
I am having so much fun with my new mini cell phone jammer.
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good job. welcome.
appears to be a lot of switchers from android to ios. maybe the comments are bias? has to be because android is way better and cooler.
what exactly are you missing out on that’s so great with the iPhone that Android has?
Android is not single OS by the way . twitter has reported that 100 versions of android running over 270 devices which look different to each other. (because OEMs put lot of crap in it)
look at iPhone only few versions of software and 3 models (8gb 16gb 32gb) .
only one Phone .
if apple releases a low-end iphone without contract and current high-end phone on 2 more carriers then , android collapses fast enough . to like 20% .
if u compare android vs iOS (iOS is leader with 44%)
“Hello? If the ‘race’ is between Apple and Android, how can RIM be the
loser? Yes, they’re hurting and will continue to hurt, but it’s not much
of a race when you compare a free OS to phones, now is it?”
race is between all smartphone operating systems (not hardwares) .
this article writes only about software running in smartphones
blackberry OS is losing its share because those blackberry OS users are buying android or iOS and selling their blackberries .
so blackberry is losing in race between android and iOS .