Android Growing Faster Than All Other Mobile Platforms (In the US) | Hacker News Reader

Android Growing Faster Than All Other Mobile Platforms (In the US)

phandroid.com

24 pointsbensummers21 comments

Obviously Android is growing, but this rhetorical trick to make the growth look RIDICULOUS is... ridiculous.

I'm not sure why this analysis stopped in October 2009. Why not go back to October 2008? Then the stats would look something like this:

  all other phones:
    sales in October 2008: finite
    sales in Jan 2010: larger
    percentage increase: big

  Android phones:
    sales in October 2008: zero
    sales in Jan 2010: large
    percentage increase: INFINITY!!!

In other words, I assert that one big reason why Android has grown so fast since "the three month period ending in October 2009" is that before then there was only one or two Android phones, they were all from HTC, as I remember they were rather poorly marketed, and as a result they sold modestly but not spectacularly. When you're down that far, there's a lot of upside potential.

Take a look at this chart:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Android_devices

What you will see is that the bulk of Android-powered devices, including the ones with the big popularity and big press from Motorola and (of course) Google itself, all came out after October 2009.

Cherry-picking certain parts of the sales growth curve and then extrapolating them to infinity does not add additional information. Take the data for what it is: The newest Android-powered devices are selling much, much better than the old; Apple's three-year-old iPhone platform has reached a marketshare plateau (not astonishing: three years is a long time in the phone market; unlike Android the iPhone OS is only available on a few types of device from one vendor; and in many markets the iPhone is chained firmly to specific telecom vendors, as Bay Area AT&T customers know all too well). Meanwhile, it sure is nice to be RIM, Microsoft's marketshare is doing about what everyone expected, and, well, it's really too bad about Palm.

EDIT: Oh, wait, these are smartphone subscriber stats. As such they probably don't include Apple's iPod Touch or other non-phone devices. (e.g. Does the Nook count?) When judging the installed base of the software platforms, rather than the size of various markets for cellphone minutes, this is a big omission, since Apple is known to do a huge iPod Touch business.

To be fair, Android also had the largest total increase in market share by increasing 4.3%, whereas the next highest total increase was 1.7%. That is pretty significant.

As the newest mobile OS on the market, I would be very surprised if Android's growth stats weren't large compared with the mature platforms.

Except Android is older than WebOS.

As Timthorn mentioned, a high growth rate from a small base isn't really impressive. Last year, it was on one U.S. carrier, and T-Mobile at that. Now, everyone but AT&T has it.

Aside from that, however, Android's tackling a range of devices from the high end tier to what the industry terms "feature phones," devices that hope to tackle one area and tackle it really well (i.e., photos, texting, social media). These are lower margin but higher gross, and for now, completely uninteresting to Apple but Android provides a perfect platform for crafty manufacturers to quickly churn them out.

The Nexus One is a better phone than the iPhone for the technologically adept. Apple is not uninterested; its recent lawsuit against HTC is testament to its fear.

I didn't mean Apple was uninterested in Android at all. Quite the contrary.

What I meant was that they're uninterested in the lower end, lower margin feature phone market that Android is successfully wading into with partners like HTC and Motorola. That's why we've never seen the $99, stripped down WalMart iPhone pundits have murmured about for years.

Apple obviously cares about the Nexus One and the Droid. They don't seemingly care about Motorola Backflip that Jim72 pointed out, for example.

Maybe it is, but it does give a very unfinished feeling when just about everything scrolls at like 10-15Hz instead of silky smooth as iPhone does.

For sure, and e.g. the media player is quite clunky, and the SD card has no standard layout. But the ability to have e.g. my todo list, or my calendar items, or a twitter feed etc. as widgets on my home screen is more tangible. And application association mechanism is useful too - I can replace the various media players, browser etc. and actions from different applications respect my wishes, rather than following some one true way. And I can get notifications and alerts from background apps - works really well for me monitoring various remote services.

Actually AT&T does have one: http://www.wireless.att.com/cell-phone-service/cell-phone-de...

Ah, I knew I was missing that! I was shocked when I couldn't recall that. And it's exactly the "social media" feature phone I was talking about. Thanks :)

The growth is quite good, i am happy for that. But it is not RIDICULOUSLY faster. This interpretation of statistics is just too much.

It's probably why i stopped reading phandroid. My suggestion for android news: http://www.planetandroid.com/

I don't really understand all the comments saying "of course it's growing extremely fast, it's a new platform". The point is that a year ago it wasn't at all obvious whether Android will become one of the major mobile platforms - now it's practically certain.

Yes, there's hyperbole in the article (what do you expect from a site called "Android Phone Fans"), but I really don't understand the attitude that, since it's a new platform, its growth is somehow self-evident. Many (most?) new platforms never take off - how's Palm doing, for example?

See:

http://metrics.admob.com/2010/01/metrics-update-android/

and tell me that's not a curve most platforms can only dream of.

It is growing fast. It has more than doubled its market share. I don't care how small the actual starting number was, it is still good progress. If you don't think so, go ask Palm!

On a similar note, the rapid Android evolution, I think, might actually be harmful. I have been without a contract for over a year now. I have been wanting an Android phone. However, each time I settle for one, a new and better one rises over the horizon. So I wait. By the time that one comes to market, the pattern is repeated.

Another real interesting story, from this data, is that the iPhone growth has become stagnate. Looks like Apple hit the ceiling! Unless of course they add in iPad sales numbers next year.

I have been without a contract for over a year now. I have been wanting an Android phone. I have been wanting an Android phone. However, each time I settle for one, a new and better one rises over the horizon. So I wait.

Contract-free Nexus One plus month-by-month with T-Mobile. There's nothing significantly better due out for several months, and if you want to upgrade in a year or so you won't have a problem selling it.

How can rapid evolution be harmful? It's the same sort of evolution that happens with other software and hardware platforms. My laptop is obsolete when I buy it but I still buy one every couple of years.

I know I should not expect too much from "Phandroid.com", but the only thing ridiculous here is the way this guy cooks the numbers. If RIM saw twice the growth as Android they would score 20.8% on his chart. The percent change in percents is not a meaningful number.

RIM grew three times faster than Apple during this period.

I mean realistically, a huge number of people already have an iphone/blackberry, and the android phones are just starting to be good enough to buy.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the US now that all 4 major carriers have TV ads featuring Android phones.

Fast growth is pretty easy when it's growth from zero.

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