Although 500,00 new Android devices are being activated per day, research company Nielsen reports that Android phone sales in the U.S. have flattened over the past three months. The research firm said that from March to May 2011, 55 percent of new phones purchased were smartphones, pushing past feature cellphones for the first time.
From March to May 2010, 34 percent of people who bought a new phone chose a smartphone over feature phones, which only have features limited to calling, texting and photo capturing, Neilsen noted.
The Android operating system still maintains the lead with 38 percent, said the research firm. Numbers show that the Android platform still makes up most of new smartphone purchases, but it seems that interest in the mobile platform has stopped its growth for now.
“However, while Android also leads among those who recently purchased a new smartphone, it is the Apple iPhone that has shown the most growth in recent months,” said Nielsen.
Breaking down the smartphone field, Android still tops the chart with 38 percent. Apple comes in second, having a market share of 27 percent, RIM has dwindled down to 21 percent. Other smartphone players are at the bottom, with Windows Mobile at 9 percent, HP Web OS at 2 percent, and Windows Phone 7 and Palm OS both at 1 percent.
Reports say that the huge iPhone sales growth can be attributed to the iPhone’s Verizon release in January.
Is the continued growth of smartphone sales lead to the downfall of feature phones?
Won't surges be happening quite often as new smartphone devices are being introduced. Android should see a surge from Galaxy S IIs shortly in the future as that model has become popular in Europe. Then Apple should see a surge as iPhone 5 is introduced. Waxing and waning of sales numbers between Android and iOS smartphones should continue throughout the year but moreso with Android since they're always introducing fancier models on a monthly basis.
Yes, surges can happen to an extent though with so many Android device releases throughout the year, that effect is minimal wrt the Android sales curve.
However this is the first time Android has lost share since Android started its meteoric rise.
Both IDC and NPD reported within the last few weeks that Android has lost around 6% share of the smartphone market in the USA last quarter while the iPhone's market share increased around 40%.
Android's growth has dropped from 9.5% in Sept 2010 to 7.5% in Dec to only 3% in the March quarter.
Android is plateauing and that's not even including the tablet and mini-tablet markets which the iPad and the iPod touch completely dominate, or the iOS App ecosystem juggernaut or the third party peripheral market which sees iPod/iPhone/iPad accessories and peripherals filling every shop shelf.
-Mart
Shockingly, 70% of Android phones from Motorola are returned because the user downloaded 'bad software'. I wonder what the total % return rate is.
I think most people that have android phones in the US are Verizon customers. Most of the android users I’ve spoken to would have bought an iPhone if they could have. However, they settled for an Android phone due to coverage or not wanting to cancel a contract. I know some of them will be updating to an iPhone once their current contract expires.
Exactly. iPhone is what people want. Except for Geek/Android Fanboy-Apple Haters, most people "settle" for Android.
If Apple fanboys want to go and get inferior hardware and pay more for it because it has a pretty apple on it then go for it, there's absolutely nothing the iPhone has on its android counterparts.. the iphone 4 is an inferior device to the evo and epic and no matter what the iphone 5 does it will be inferior to the samsung galaxy s2.