By Comscore has just published their smartphone reports detailing statistics from October 2009 through January 2010 and although we knew Android grew incredibly – the actual statistics are quite staggering. Take a look at this chart which shows market share from RIM, Apple, Microsoft, Google and Palm:
Second to last place with hardly more market share than Palm? How is that staggering? Well… as Kevin Tofel explains it is all a matter of how you look at the numbers. What we SHOULD be looking at is growth rate – that is – percentage growth from October through January:
That is HUGELY indicative of the momentum Android has and the deceleration of other platforms. Looking just at market share gain/growth you might not realize how poorly Microsoft is performing, how Palm is slowing more than any other platform, and how little RIM and Apple are improving. And for that matter, how ridiculously quickly Android is growing.
The numbers are looking good my friends and I would fully expect these various momentums (momentii?) to continue. Apple always gets a huge uptick with a new iPhone, and WebOS should perform better when they finally offer some new devices (if they’re unique), but I don’t see Android slowing down much over the next 10 months – at all. Not domestically or globally.
Hawt.
I guess this was the chart Apple was looking at when they decided to jump on HTC..
cool. i’ll be doing my part tonight by picking up a droid.. :)
rob,
do you live in MS? or are the ads on this site location based? Because I thought Cellular South was only around here (MS), and that’s what I always see on here. Just wondering
apple can suck it.
And Google is doing all it can by giving away free phones. I got a Droid at GDC by qualifying for Google’s free phone giveaway. Today at GDC, Droids were given to attendees of 2 Google sponsored sessions.
Anyone notice that the percentages don’t add up? The actual numbers are 99.4% total for Oct and 99.6% total for Jan. Makes you wonder just how reliable these statistics actually are…
elijahblake, I am currently in Chicago and see adds for VZW and Sprint. Must be location, location, location based.
The percentage growth isn’t as impressive as the absolute numbers of new users. :)
I’ll be doing my part and picking up a Nexus One. Woot.. will have 2 Androids phones to play with!!
Apple can suck it.
Excuse me, 96.4 for Oct and 96.6 for Jan… That’s what I get for not double checking mental math…
Hehe, fighting the good fight! Just ordered HTC Desire , already have Hero….
@MikeYasuragi: That’s probably be the “others” category which they simply didn’t put into that chart. For example what about Symbian?
thanks Mac,
I figured that’s prob what it was…
I’m not really impressed by these numbers. There have been quite a lot of new phones running Android released lately, so it’s only logical that this would result in quite some market share. The next step is a lot more difficult – to go after Apple and RIM. They have a huge market share. It’s easy to grow when you’re small. After that it gets harder.
i came from the RIM slice of pie just by doing half an hour of research, its obvious android>blackberry
Elijah,
I think the ads must be location based b/c I’m in SC and I know Cellular South isn’t here. It’s in MS, Memphis, Fl Panhandle, and various parts in AL and GA. I used to live in MS and had Cellular South. Now I have t-mobile and I’m driving myself crazy trying to make the decision to go with the Mytouch or the Cliq!
I’m not sure a new iPhone is going to change things that much. Pretty much everyone who wants an iPhone got one already. Most of the Verizon users are going to move over to Android OS phones over the next two years unless Apple leaves AT&T.
nemov is correct. At these projections , at&t and it’s exclusivity will be the killer of the iphone.
RIM isn’t going anywhere. They have the enterprise market locked up. Apple is pissing themselves though. 154% growth in 3 months…sick.
> momentums (momentii?)
— momenta. (It’s a Latin second-declension neuter).
Really good to see. I think the gimicky iPhone apps will eventually show their true colors. Let the industry decide what is useful and what is just pretty colors on a pretty phone.
These are some impressive stats :)
Not long till Android hits 10% :D
it’ll grow even more if at&t gets the HTC Desire. i know alot of people that’ll switch from their iphone over to it, that way they don’t have to pay an early termination fee
(momentums is an acceptable modern substitute)
Hopefully, Android will be allowed to reach the ears of more casual consumers
if the iphone community isnt growing fast enough apple will just sue over their vague patent “using electricity to power a device”…or maybe their patent on “using sound to communicate”. they can take our features but they can never take our FREEDOM!!!…with that rant aside, go android
@ Brian
No, Apple will sue with their “device that makes a call on a cellular network” patent next. Even though they haven’t totally gotten the patent to work yet ;-)
Android might be growing but at the same time screwing its customers that are still stuck with Android 1.5 and 1.6. Thats why i left Android and went with MAEMO 5 (Nokia N900). Might reconsider Android again when Google gets a better plan. In the meantime i’ve managed to get my brother and 4 of my buddies to switch to Android
Shall we take bets on how long it takes for someone to cry “it’s only growing so fast because of all the handsets! Apple did it with 1!”
Anyone?
Ye, I bet those figures wouldn’t be so good if you included Europe. Google has done nothing to promote the platform, and the market itsnt even open to loads of countries.
In the last 2 weeks, 3 of my friends have bought iphones because apple is rapidly deploying on more networks and having big advertisement campaigns. Android’s having it a.ss handed to it over here :-(
Yeah, the droid is certainly better than the iphone, but those numbers are not impressive at all… Why? Cause it’s initial growth.. someone compare the initial growth rate after both phones came out (or groiwth since the first day that the phone was sold) and then there’s something to talk about.
I’ll bet apple (and rim) haven’t flinched one bit with a 4% growth. (looking at the numbers like Kevin Tofel says makes absolutly no sense whatsoever business-wise…)
And like i said, i’m a droid fan myself…
@Dave, what are you talking about? the iPhone doesn’t hold a call long enough for you to even have a conversation :P
The math si a bit missleading…
a company that goes from 50% market share to 54%, has 8% growth, but has captured 4% of the market.
A company that goes from 1% to 2% has 100% growth, but only captured 1%.
– for example, would it even be possible rim(at 43%) to get 153% growth – and end up with 133.85% of the market ?? wait a sec how do you get over 100% market share.
don’t read in to this stat more then you should
heheh – this is the same misinterpretation of statistics that Apple fans like to do too. Percent of percentage change is a furphy.
What Kevin Nem said is spot on.
If Apple had’ve increased its marketshare by 4.3%, it would only show up as a 17% percentage change.
So for Apple to match Google’s percentage growth, they would have had to capture 63% of the market!
That is, in terms of percentage change, Apple would have had to have a 38% change, just to match Google’s 4.3%. That’s 9 times as many phones.
And RIM, as Kevin points out, to match the same percent of percentage change, would have had to capture 134% of the market…
Nope, percent of percentage change is a furphy.
Momenta.
Lies, damn lies and statistics, amirite?
You need the actual numbers before this is meaningful. To simplify things even further from the comments that Chris Howard and Kevin Nem wrote, if I started a phone company and I was the only user of my phone, but even ONE other person bought a phone, my growth would have been 100%! ONE HUNDRED PERCENT. OMG.
Meanwhile, a single person buying a phone from a company that’s already sold a million phones has a pathetic 0.00001% growth, even though we’ve increased our user base by EXACTLY THE SAME NUMBER.
Android is picking up, but the user base is still woefully small in comparison to the big players.
Palm seems to be purely dead… microsoft’s figures may jump up after windows 7 phone….I thinks Apple will also surpass BB this summer with the launch of iPhone 4.
1 phone vs. 100. Apple isn’t playing that game:) Android is Free!
growing faster is not the same thing as selling more!
if i sold one phone till the start of a quarter, and sold one more during the quarter that’s 100% increase!
>Android might be growing but at the same screwing its customers that are still stuck with Android 1.5 and 1.6. Thats why i left Android and went with MAEMO 5 (Nokia N900).
I have a HTC hero and am considering doing the same if the promised March update isn’t delivered asap
Not to mention all those people who buy a mobile or whatever with windows, delete it and install some flavor of Linux.
As long phandroids fail to grok (relative) rate of growth vs. marketshare in the context of a platform race, Apple and RIM have nothing to worry about.
So far Android phones are still expensive and sold by very few companies, HTC, Samsung, Motorola has one. That’s about it.
Just wait till all the other manufacturers join the Android camp with actual products on the market.
The $199 unlocked full feature Android phones are imminent. $529 unlocked Nexus One is ridiculously expensive. Once you can buy full feature Android phones for less than $200 with no contracts, even with free VOIP services built-in, $20 per month pre-paid data services all inclusive, manufactured by all including Dell, Philips, Hisense, Huawei, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, they are all working 100% on Android at the moment.
Who will pay $3000 for an iPhone (with 2-year contracts), when you will be able to get an Android phone for $100 without contracts, just use VOIP on WiFi or pre-pay $20 per month for unlimited VOIP on 3G. How will Apple be able to sell any iPhones any more?
Where is symbian?
All this animosity toward apple and the iPhone seems quite illogical. Why are you losers angry at a computer company? Leads me to believe you are all closet apple fans grossly overcompensating. You’re shameless devotion to android is as appalling and immature as the devotion of apple fans. Instead of new gadgets, GET YOURSELF A LIFE.