Comments on: Is Apple beating Android in the US after all?

By: Marvel Reynolds

Marvel Reynolds — Mon, 07 May 2012 22:30:00 +0000

NPD has made it very clear that they track new handsets sold. Not reactivation of old phones. Android is kicking iOS’s tail when it comes to new activations for new folks. This has been known for a very very long time. And its like a snowball, the more first timers that start with Android, the more they tend to stay. You buy apps from the Play store, when your upgrade time comes, you want another Android phone so you can use the apps you bought and are familiar with.

So they go to a carrier store, any carrier, and pick from dozens of Android devices. This is not a form of momentum that can be stopped. Apple will spike with a release, then be crushed under the weight the following quarters. Its inevitable.

By: Fandroid Spin

Fandroid Spin — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:32:00 +0000

Wrong, Android (the entire OS with about 300 phones) is kicking iPhone’s ass. iPhone is kicking every Android phone’s individual ass, and iOS is destroying Android as a whole. But nice effort, seems you put some thought into it :)

By: Fandroid Spin

Fandroid Spin — Fri, 04 May 2012 00:23:00 +0000

Who cares about marketshare? Android fanboys do.

By: NOPE

NOPE — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:42:00 +0000

Samsung – in the world market – has a 30% share as of last quarter compared to Apples 21% share. So brand for brand, regardless of how many different devices Samsung has on the market (which one could argue are pretty much just wrapped in different carriers logos) they are still leading which would make Android the lead OS.

By: Nope

Nope — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:39:00 +0000

Nope. You’re forgetting windows phones…

By: LarryVandemeer

LarryVandemeer — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:38:00 +0000

The contradiction is only in Apple fanboys minds… NPD is counting smartphone unique users (via a statistical survey) while the carrier numbers are not new users but include a boatload of upgraded iPhone devices to the same users (70+% of AT&Ts iphones were upgrades) who are popping the sim out of one and puting it into a new one. Comparing the two is not rocket science but it’s apples and oranges

By: LarryVandemeer

LarryVandemeer — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:27:00 +0000

To buy the flagship Galaxy Nexus off contract unlocked costs $399. To buy UNLOCKED NO CONTRACT Android smartphones you could pay as little as $100.

Compare that to buying the lowest cheapest iPhone4S off contract unlocked that costs $649, and you can easily see why Android is at 51% and Apple at 30% in the US and worldwide 65% Android and 20% iPhone .

By: LarryVandemeer

LarryVandemeer — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:16:00 +0000

You missed the point. AT&T stated that 70% of more of the iPhone purchase were upgrades. Most of the iPhone sales go to the same users, not to new users. So the base of iphone users is not growing as fast as android.

By: LarryVandemeer

LarryVandemeer — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:12:00 +0000

There are many articles on the subject so go fetch, or is siri that dumb?

By: Koller

Koller — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:07:00 +0000

the % given by NPD is can
be more accurate because it is a random sample. To make the information taken
from the carriers have more weight they have to analyze every single carrier in
the US and only take count of new iPhone users and from those user who is
moving from android and vise versa. So at the end no meter what the carriers
says, a big sample of random people who actually use the phone (any phone) is
more accurate than the number the carrier can give.

By: John Doser

John Doser — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:58:00 +0000

Android is kicking iOS’s ass, get over it.

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:55:00 +0000

Nice grammar, ever taken an English class? And yes I have actually, but that still doesn’t mean that a sample is 100% indicative of the true population. The larger the sample the better, but 12,000 out of the millions who bought a smartphone is hardly an exact figure

By: TheGuest

TheGuest — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:52:00 +0000

have
you ever taken an statistics class? Because by your example it looks
like you doesn’t, and all this result is based in the sample they had.

By: sgtguthrie

sgtguthrie — Thu, 03 May 2012 17:27:00 +0000

EXACTLY! This is not news worthy…

By: tastygroove

tastygroove — Thu, 03 May 2012 15:01:00 +0000

There are millions of prepaid androids sold monthly. Virgin sells a number of the, Walmart has several, etc. I know 4 people including myself who had one at some point.

I would gather very.few people buy $800 unlocked Iphones to put on prepaid plans.

By: tastygroove

tastygroove — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:58:00 +0000

Yep, 100% smartphone sold new are android at Tmobile.

By: pepee63

pepee63 — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:58:00 +0000

So what. its a world market

By: tastygroove

tastygroove — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:57:00 +0000

What? 13,000 sample not as good as the carriers 30 million sample?

By: tastygroove

tastygroove — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:56:00 +0000

Android and Ios are American inventions.

By: tastygroove

tastygroove — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:55:00 +0000

There was no question in the past because both carriers and npd came to the same conclusion. Now there is a contradiction.

Is this rocket science?

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:06:00 +0000

Please show me any kind of evidence showing iPhone users have more money to spend? iPhones on contract cost just as much as Android phones on contract generally. That makes absolutely no sense.

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:05:00 +0000

There are not millions of people buying new Android handsets off contract, especially not when you’re saying people wouldn’t do that with iPhones at all. And those reports are NOT fact, they are simply guesses at what the numbers are. The reports use samples that are usually no more than a percent of the actual number. If I asked you to tell me how much my cart full of groceries would cost, but only let you see 2 out of the 200 items in it, would you be able to give me the exact number of how much it would cost total?

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:59:00 +0000

This is a perfect example that samples can’t predict the population perfectly. That, and Verizon, AT&T and Sprint don’t account for all service providers here, so crossing with carrier numbers and only using those three is idiotic. They don’t report what their subsidiary companies (i.e Virgin Mobile, etc) do either.

By: The Boss

The Boss — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:29:00 +0000

Seems these surveys deliberately avoided the other service providers who just sell android phones like US cellular, T-mobile, etc. These carriers don’t sell iphones at all and the US mobile industry is not just the top 3 companies although they hold a major share together which comprises of huge basic phone population. Another thing is about the unlocked cell phones sold through online which are used in 3rd party service providers like straight talk etc. Avoiding these facts, almost every time these surveys mislead the picture that helped to position just one company as the top smartphone seller… pathetic for people

By: Guest

Guest — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:24:00 +0000

I would hesitate to say that iPhone users have more money to spend. iPhone is most popular amongst teens in America, from what I’ve read…..and you’d have a hard job trying to convince anyone that a 17 year working at Wal-Mart stocking shelves has more money than a senior programmer or a salesperson in their 30′s or 40′s etc. using an Android device or Blackberry.

I know several teens who convinced their parents to let them use their allowance, or money from washing dishes in a kitchen or whatever to buy an iPhone….then mom and dad end up getting stuck with the monthly fees, because the kid can’t keep up the payments.

By: Nandan A

Nandan A — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:02:00 +0000

iPhone ( with 3 models ) is great in that it is able to compete with more than 30 Android models in the market. However, all Androids combined beat iPhone in market-share easily.

What operators published are new activations. There are millions of users who simply change their handset ( using their existing SIM ) to new Android models. Such changes are not measurable by operators who can only give us new activations.

Several reports reveal that Android has 51%, iOS has 31%, WP has 3.9% and so on. It is a fact. I respect iPhone because of its competency but Androids are strong too.

By: LarryVandemeer

LarryVandemeer — Thu, 03 May 2012 13:00:00 +0000

The vast majority of the iPhone sales are upgrades. AT&T said as much that more than 70% of their iPhone sales were upgrades to current users and NOT new users. I personally know iPhone users that have upgraded to every single year to the new iPhone and have 4 iPhone models sitting in a drawer gathering dust. NPD stated that their data is for ALL users. If Apple iPhone users upgrade to the new iphone and only use one, that would mean that the carrier data you are using for iPhones is fundamentally flawed as it does not account for upgrades versus new user activations. Based on AT&T data alone, 70% of them were upgrades and not new users. Maybe Apple users are a cult or have more money to waste and that is why so many of them buy every years model, where as Android users spend their money wisely. So iPhone users have multiple units but only one active, whereas Android users are not like that.

By: challenge_accepted

challenge_accepted — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:58:00 +0000

Aren’t you guys forgetting tmobile? I imagine they add another 2-3m android devices to this.

By: Sarcen

Sarcen — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:26:00 +0000

That’s not strictly true. People are either inclined to buy an iOS device, an Android device or something else. So while iOS and Android are competing against one another in broad terms, Android handsets are competing against one another for the same segment of the market (eg, people who do not want iPhones). Putting iOS on more devices would just have those devices competing against one another for their shared market segment, not cut deeply into Android’s.

By: Sarcen

Sarcen — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:18:00 +0000

It’s not necessarily bad data or bad methodology. In statistical terms, there are all kinds of reasons their survey results don’t match carrier sales figures, not least of which being that perhaps they are not trying to approximate that figure. And no, one would not try to correlate survey data with sales figures, that genuinely WOULD produce corrupt results.

By: pepee63

pepee63 — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:00:00 +0000

I didn’t say any phone was better, all I said was give us a true indication of what is happening all around the world and not just what happens in America.

By: Abplustech

Abplustech — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:50:00 +0000

The truth is if iOS was on 30 devices like android is iOS would be winning. You have 3 models of the IPhone the 3GS the 4 and the 4S v.s. 30 devices with android maid buy everyone from Samsung down to tiny teck show me one phone that out sells the IPhone 4S anyone anyone oh ya that is what I thought. iOS is the real leader here you can’t have 30 against 1 and say your better it’s just not a fair comparison

By: Stef of Ing

Stef of Ing — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:47:00 +0000

“NPD says its numbers were based on a survey of 12,811 consumers asking what smartphones they purchased” – so clearly not as accurate as the data taken from source.

By: pepee63

pepee63 — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:18:00 +0000

Who cares if Apple is leading in America or not. Give me the numbers of the whole world. Then we can get a true idea of what’s going on or i could bring out a survey and say that Android has more users than Apple according to the twenty friends i have. See, pointless information. America is not the world, its just one country. And anyway, you would think Americans would be more loyal to their own companies wouldn’t you.

By: Oletros

Oletros — Thu, 03 May 2012 11:05:00 +0000

I like how NPD data has been reliable in the past, when the numbers where more fvourable to one company. Now that they don’t, people like MG Siegler, Gruber or Business Insider say is bad and not telling the truth?