Is Android Poised To Overtake iPhone's Mobile Dominance?
The first quarter of this year has been dominated by the mobile market - in particular the success of the iPad launch, even though no one has had the chance to use it yet, and Android positioning itself as a worthwhile competitor the Apple's mobile OS.
Now it looks like Android is set to overtake the iPhone sooner rather than later, at least according to this mobile traffic graph from James Governor's blog.
Android enthusiasts are bound to be excited about this and they're right to be. For the average Java developers, writing an Android application is much easier than an iPhone application. With these statistics, it's a fair assumption that the Android marketplace could generate a healthy income for your application, once you have the right idea.
All the iPad hype has helped to fuel tablet sales too - a market that never quite found its feet before now. The biggest fuss in the Android space is the WePad, which looks like it's going to give the iPad a run for it's money.
To me the most important thing isn't that Android overtakes iPhone, or vice versa. It's that the software industry is an exciting and dynamic industry to be in, as noted in a recent TechCrunch story written by Marc Benioff:
The future of our industry now looks totally different than the past. It looks like a sheet of paper, and it’s called the iPad. It’s not about typing or clicking; it’s about touching. It’s not about text, or even animation, it’s about video. It’s not about a local disk, or even a desktop, it’s about the cloud. It’s not about pulling information; it’s about push. It’s not about repurposing old software, it’s about writing everything from scratch (because you want to take advantage of the awesome potential of the new computers and the new cloud—and because you have to reach this pinnacle). Finally, the industry is fun again.
I would go as far as saying that now is the best time to be developing software. There's so many technology opportunities out there, and the rise of the mobile industry means that you can reach more people than ever with your applications.
Comments
Sergey Surikov replied on Wed, 2010/03/31 - 6:18am
this is wrong statistic. See http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1306513
Symbian - 46.9%
Research In Motion (RIM) - 19.9%
iPhone OS - 14.4%
Microsoft Windows Mobile - 8.7%
Linux - 4.7%
Android - 3.9%
WebOS - 0.7%
Other OSs - 0.6%
Android and iPhone far away from Symbian.
Roy Grini replied on Wed, 2010/03/31 - 6:42am
in response to:
Sergey Surikov
I think the statistics might be correct. Firstly because the main article chart represents US only, and Symbian is not as widespread there at all. Symbian dominates in Asia, Africa and eastern Europe, but not in North America. Also, the Gartner chart is OS per sold handset, and the admob chart is OS'es generating mobile data traffic.
Roy
Dmitri Trembovetski replied on Wed, 2010/03/31 - 12:04pm
The Gardner links is for worldwide smartphone market share.
Here's a link with market share data for both US and Worldwide:
http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/3/comScore_Reports_January_2010_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share
Jeff Vera replied on Wed, 2010/03/31 - 12:12pm
Sergey Surikov replied on Wed, 2010/03/31 - 1:56pm
in response to:
Dmitri Trembovetski
Dmitri Trembovetski replied on Thu, 2010/04/01 - 2:10am
> this is strange statistic too. I see Nokia in first table but i don't see Nokia in second table. The most of Nokia phones uses Symbian.
Nokia has no presense in the US smartphone market. Like, none.
Sergey Surikov replied on Thu, 2010/04/01 - 2:39am
--
wrong. See first table. I think comScore don't understand that many of Nokia phones are smartphones. Nevertheless, Symbian has installed in many phones around the world and in USA. iPhone is famouse in USA only.
Alex Johnson replied on Thu, 2010/04/01 - 6:06am
I have to agree with Dmitri, most of the Nokia phones that make it to North America are in the garbage category - not exactly smart phones - more like "semi-dumb" phones. Sadly there are quite a few Nokie models (some even from over a year ago) that cream the iPhone and BB, but for some reason those don't make it this way.
Instead, we get the 6265 (for example) that looks cool and has the stability of a homemade toaster..
How many cell providers do you know that carry nokia smart phones? Most of the market gets their phones directly from their provider, those that seek out proper phones are few.
PS. iPhone sux... Apple pioneered the market of selling expensive hardware and dictating what you are allowed to do with it (and what apps you are "Allowed" to run).With people flocking for the honor.