All Things Tech & Social

This is not an argument about which smartphone is better. Neither is this an argument about which operating system is better. This is me simply addressing why using the market share of android smart phones as a measure of success over the iPhone, does not adequately illustrate which smart phone is truly “king” in the eyes of consumers. 

Apple hasn’t released a new iPhone since June of 2010. That was 15 months ago. This means that as of now, every major smartphone maker is competing with the iPhone 4 and the iPhone 3GS (which is 27 months old), not to mention the iPhone was only on one carrier (At&t) and recently added to Verizon. When looking at the total number of Android “powered” phones that have come out in 2011/2010 alone, it would make sense for Android phones to “collectively” outnumber the iPhone in sales.

Top Android Phones of 2011 : HTC ThunderBolt (Verizon), HTC EVO (Sprint), HTC Droid Incredible (Verizon), HTC Inspire 4G (At&t), Motorola Droid X (Verizon), HTC Droid Incredible 2 (Verizon), Motorola Droid (Verizon), HTC EVO Shift 4G (Sprint), Samaung Droid Charge (Verizon), Samaung EPIC 4G (Sprint), Motorola Atrix 4G (At&t), LG Optimus 2X (T-Mobile), Motorola Droid Bionic (Verizon), HTC Merge (Verizon), Samsung Infuse 4G (At&t), LG Revolution (Verizon), HTC Pyramid (T-Mobile), Nexus S (T-Mobile), LG Optimus 3D (At&t), Samsung Galaxy S2 (At&t, Sprint, T-Mobile). That’s 20 smartphones. TWENTY.

Android as an “operating system” has the larger market share, and when you have 20 smartpones released in the span of 12 months, this is an obvious achievement. Android is on multiple phones, on multiple networks, with multiple price points.

The iPhone is the most popular smart phone in the world though. Analyst T. Michael Walkley with Canaccord Genuity has reported that the iPhone 4 remained the top-selling handset at both AT&T and Verizon in August. Also, over the past 12 months, as reported in a study from The NPD Group, the two-year-old iPhone 3GS is selling so well that it is still the most popular smartphone after the iPhone 4.

What does this tell you? The iPhone 4 is more than a year old and still selling better than any other smartphone “individually” and the iPhone 3GS, despite first being released in 2009, continues to outsell newer Android devices. Add to this the latest report from the ChangeWave survey of 4,163 consumers. This survey looked at smart phone demand trends and showed that the Apple iOS remains the number one preference for buyers – with 46% of those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days saying they prefer to have a phone with Apple iOS (Apple’s mobile operating system).

They also looked at OS customer satisfaction ratings based upon the operating system consumers have on their smart phones, and Apple was the clear leader – with 70% of customers using the iOS saying they are Very Satisfied. In regards to smartphone demand their survey showed that nearly half of those (48%) planning on buying a smart phone in the next 90 days plan on purchasing an iPhone.

Not only is the iPhone dominating in sales, but it’s also dominating in what I call “preference popularity”. Once Apple releases the iPhone 5 in October on At&t, Verizon, and Sprint, things will surely get more interesting in regards to the market share. If Apple also releases the rumored “lower costing” iPhone 4S to all three networks as well, this will really make the Google vs. Apple smartphone market share battle even more entertaining.