By 
There’s no doubt that just like the year before it, 2011 was a tremendous year for Android. Even though many like to lump all Android devices into one as far as market share is concerned, not all is “kumbaya” in the world of Google’s mobile OS especially when Android OEM’s compete viciously with each other for handset supremacy. If you were curious to see exactly which devices came out on top, BGR was nice enough to supply this report from Canaccord Genuity who lists of the top performers, by carrier, for the months of July through December.
It’s almost no surprise that Samsung came out as the top Android performer with their Galaxy S II’s and Galaxy Nexus taking honors for top Android devices sold. The only thing that kept Samsung from the #1 spot was Apple’s iPhone 4S which took home the gold, beating every other Android device on every carrier of which the device was sold.
Moving into 2012, do you guys think we will finally see a single Android device capable of taking down the iPhone in sales?
No.
My unprofessional opinion says that we will never see a single android device beat the iPhone
No.
I think an android device will. But it’ll probably be about 2 years until that happens.
Why should a single android device ever have to beat the iphone? This is like saying “can an entire brand line beat a single device” even though the situations simply aren’t similar.
also as noted: who are these guys? Their predictions are seriously all over the place.
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2011/12/06/canaccord-genuity-kindle-fire-will-take-15-3-of-tablet-market/
then we have other apple strong predictions, etc.
No because there’s still too many idiots who buy apple because of apple’s marketing abilities. Not enough people who actually research what they buy before they buy it. Apple will be on top for a long time, there are too many BLIND followers.
Not to mention android buyers are split across multiple phones, while iphone has basically one option…more people enjoy android, but they have so many choices it gets cut into ‘little’ pieces while iphone remains whole other than the small bite of cheaper old iphone models.
This. Samsung MAY do it with one of their SGS phones in a few years, if they can get it on all carriers quickly enough. It seems to be a brand that is building steam. Other than that, even if iPhone has half the marketshare of android, no android phone takes over half the sales.
I had an Android device for 18 months and now own a 4S. I consider myself very knowledgable in the world of tech, and I did months of research on which phone I should get. Am I a mere sheeple that has fallen prey to hypnotizing marketing, or am I one of many who doesn’t care about constantly tinkering with their phones and caring about things like battery management, rooting, etc.?
I have a phone that works now. I don’t have to worry about random reboots, my phone dying at 3PM, malware, getting new upgrades without voiding my warranty, constantly fighting with my phone to make it work and other “advantages” of Android.
my droid2 doesn’t reboot
my friend htc 3d is much faster on the internet than 4s
My friend’s 4s faster than my SGN :(
the moment you enter the “rooting and rom” community, your were also agreed the “crash, freezing, and reboot” agreement.
Some people expect to use alpha builds of custom roms and have no problems. It’s pretty pathetic, people need to read into things more before flashing it to their device.
I used to had a htc dinc, even the cm7.1 rom crash and reboot.
Yes because it is a custom rom. You can’t expect a custom rom to work flawlessly. Even though the rom is considered stable it will still have issues.
You can’t even send a photo, mp3, word doc over flipping Bluetooth which even dumbphones 6years ago could….that tells you everything about iPhones
Bump. Problem solved.
Is that why all iphone4S users around me cone see me use my Galaxy S II and says it’s so fast???? Android is finally fetring the attention it deserves or in this case, the Galaxy S line.
The problem in everything that you say is that Android you have experience with OLD Android hardware.. Please have in mind that the iPhone has 2 or more years of development! The current Android phones will beat out the iPhone any day! You can say oh man here is another Androidfag who is nothing but a fanboy, I own a 4S, SGN and RAZR! By far the 2 android phones surpass the 4S in ability, style, and power. It’s either old experience or you’re just dumb with phones. I have never had a problem with Android and don’t think I will ever have one… I like choice…. Since you do use iOS now.. yes you’re a Sheeple whether you want to accept it or not… You have iTunes, you use iCloud, you have iOS.. what next? I’m done ranting.
dude, have you used an iphone before? do you know how smooth and speed that phone is? “Where my water” runs instantly on iphone while it run little bit slow on my SGN (around 5~7 seconds between each levels, it’s instantly on iphone 4s).
My friend’s iphone 4s run on Edge (tmobile), his facebook apps run much more faster than my 4g SGN. i dont know why it load much faster than my SGN.
A single Android device to take down an iPhone, probably wont see it for some time from now.
The problem with Android is the support, my mytouch 4g didn’t even receive gingerbread as yet like what’s up with that
Google says it was rolled out last July… what’s up with that ?.. call or go to the store.
Not in 2012, simply because the ip5 actually will get released. Apple lives off repeat buyers and convincing people their phone is the best, even though it’s outdated and stale (iOS 6 will not be much different than iOS 1). It’s possible in 2013 if the OEMs stop producing so many friggin phones but focus on a small handful of top quality handsets instead.
Best bet of any Android handset in 2012 of touching the iPhone in sales will be the Samsung SGS3, if priced correctly.
Samsung is going to beat Apple. In fact they outsold them one quarter already. The problem with Apple is they are always behind the curve and if they keep up the yearly pace, they are going to fall behind even more. Also you have a population that is getting used to an ever improving Android.
Anyway, if HTC, Motorola and LG were to disappear, Samsung would be tops. Competition within the Android sphere is what’s keeping any one manufacturer from topping Apple.
Also saying the iPhone 4s outsold everyone else is only half the story. I’d like to know by how much. I’d venture to guess the gap isn’t that big.
OS penetration has to be looked at in the same breath of analyzing iPhone vs Android sales and of course the last quarter the iphone was ahead. They just released a long overdue iphone 4 follow up. Let’s see how things go this quarter and the next.
Who cares .Android wasn’t just designed for a smart phone. Google has it right they will intergrate android into everything while apple worries about the next iPhone. Apple users are like sheep they don’t lead they follow. Omg he or she has an iPhone I have to get one mentality
No, and it’s not likely to ever happen. There are a plethora of great choices in the Android library. Whereas Apple limits themselves to one phone at a time. People are always going to buy what’s best for them. That’s what’s so great about Android – there’s never one device to rule them all.
Being a hardcore Android enthusiast – not gonna happen for long time. iSheeps dominate the world, and features and technological superiority of Android don’t matter to them. An iSheep will keep on buying same old crap Apple sells her, and be happy because it’s the same old crap, no learning curve required, and what’s most important – her friend’s got that crap too!
no one cares if the iphone is the number 1 phone. its for old people, and people with small hands. they are way behind on technology and always will be. inferior product is number 1? shows how much the people that buy it know about anything. LAME
You mean people like this? http://i.imgur.com/Akv7L.jpg
And this? http://i.imgur.com/9X59A.jpg
The charts that only show stats for individual devices mean almost nothing.
It’s the same with the Windows laptops too, where the MacBooks are the top selling devices, but the Windows laptops have more market share.
Good point! 2 different approaches. You have to look at OS penetration first and then hardware penetration. Just because iphone is both and is so tightly controlled is a good reason not to look at this type of comparison. You should look at android os penetration vs iOS and then break down android hardware device market share. It’s not a fair comparison at all when the business models are so different.
i don’t care how good mac laptops are, it doesn’t justify the price tag of 4 fold of pc laptop, of similar specs
You could say market share means nothing.
Every one has an iphone except tmobile! Tmobile has to step up it game and bring on the galaxy s3 1st i mean right now!
Now that ATT is done. They really do need to get aggressive. They were first to offer android and now they need to get back in that mode and get the openness of their offerings vs verizon back in control. Offer the first 4g asus transformer prime hd and some of Asus’s companion phones. However, not sure the oem’s see t-mobile as a company to bow to and give their latest and greatest. Right now Asus and T-Mobile devices could become very attractive since their both in the same boat as great products but not dominating the market.
A lot of y’all are on the kool-aid if you think Apple’s success is just because people are dumb. They make a great product. I prefer android’s system to apples, but only an idiot denies what they have done and what they make.
Truth!!!
finally someone that isnt a blind hater… THANK YOU!
Apple’s success is not only because people are dumb, it’s largely because they are amazing at marketing their crap. If anyone is on the kool-aide, it’s you thinking it’s because they make a great product. No, their phones aren’t junk, but they are upper mid range phones at best and people are still buying them thinking they are the best out there simply because they are marketing geniuses. When you make a phone that’s VERY slightly better than the last and you get that many people to upgrade, it can’t get any more clear that they have alot of sheep blindly following.
As much as I love Android, it always amuses me the amount of bashing and condescension in these articles with the iphone being related. Calling people that buy these iphones stupid is not true…Stupid is buying a phone that you don’t want nor like. And as far as them being “isheep” is no different than any our devotion and love for android. Anyway, it is doubtful ONE android phone can beat the iphone. But if it does happen, more than likely it will be the Galaxy S line i believe to do it.
galaxy ii hd will do it
WOW…Bull crap!!!! Samsung Galaxy S II was the highest by a land slide!!!!!
oh and aside from being an android fangirl, i am also a diehard Windows phone 7 fan so it is good to see the radar in the top 3 as well :D
Android will have its best chance at taking the crown with a single device in 2013 because we all know the iPhone in 2013 will just be a type s model of the iPhone 5 that gets released this year! Everybody is on to Apple’s same device for 2 years thing now with very minor upgrades.
Baaaa
IMHO. nothing can be compared to an iphone….. seriously. it set its own standard.
Yes now more and more iphone users ask about the Galaxy SII. Android is finally getting the exposure it needs. SAMSUNG ITS TIME TO STEP UP ANOTHER GEAR
GALAXY S III FTW!!!!!
No and I don’t see it changing anytime soon. While it’s not fair to compare iphone sales with all android devices it’s not fair to compare iphone sales against a single android handset. The reason is simply down to choice. Taking other smart phone choices out of the equation for the moment; the first thing a user does is decide between ios and Android. This may be due to price, functionality or marketing draw. If they went for ios then it’s a choice of the current apple phone or the previous model to save a little cash. If you went for Android you have such a large number of choices it’s inevitable that people will go many different ways. How can one phone stand out strongly when this much competition exists? It’s not impossible but it is very difficult!
You guys realize that all this chart shows is that the mass of Android users have more than one phone to pic from. If they had combined all the top android phones together it would clearly outnumber iPhone 4s sales.
Iphone people are funny as hell. They think because a very small amount of android users that root and flash have problems means everyone has problems with android. You only have problems when you don’t use your brain. I rooted and flashed and tinkered with my phone and I have a super optimal evo 4g with an aosp rom that works perfectly and actually gets decent download speeds with 3g. I don’t have a 4g area but my wifi fucking flies. Apple owners are people who just want a cool phone which it is. But in my honest opinion my evo blows out the newest iPhone and will still probably be ahead of the next one that comes out, why? Because I can continue updating it even after HTC decides they don’t want to anymore. Suck that apple!
P.s. siri was their biggest selling point along with an 8 megapixel camera, two things I’ve had on my evo wwwwwwwaaaaaaayyyyyyyy before iPhones had it. So suck it again apple!
To be fair who in the Android world cares? Android still sell by the ship load so it’s not like they are going anywhere soon. Lets just leave the Fisher Price stuff to the Apple lot and we will enjoy the little green man for years to come.
I hope that never happens. Vicious competition among Android vendors is what makes Android so great. I hope competition intensifies.
It’s unfortunate that they can’t standardize their upgrade process the way it is standardized for windows PC’s. Even the cheapest laptop still runs Windows 7. If they made it so every device was upgradable the same way I’d feel even more comfortable buying a device that wasn’t a flagship top seller.
USA != world
I doubt there are as many sheep in europe or even asia
Have you not see what happened in China???
resellers :)
Yea a small percentage
Comparing iPhone sales to individual Android devices is not an accurate comparison. You have all of the memory capacities of the iPhone grouped into one category while all Android devices are individualized. Android phones come in too many flavors to compare sales numbers of individual Android devices to one flavor (or three memory sizes) of iPhone.
Biggest surprise here from a UK perspective – Motorola outselling Samsung as a vendor. I rarely hear Motorola mentioned here, with Android usually being a choice between Samsung or HTC. Are they actually bigger than Samsung in the US?
The ip5 will be 2012 gold. I don’t care. I’ll still be on Android because iPhone is a chick phone and men with small hands. Lol. Don’t get butt hurt iPhone users. I am not fan Droid for life. I just prefer Android because of the constance quaterly upgrades. Also new technology hardware and software side.