Google Android Outsells Apple iPhone In The U.S. | Hacker News Reader

Google Android Outsells Apple iPhone In The U.S.

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71 pointsjacquesm53 comments

As a developer, I don't care about hardware marketshare--I care about the mindshare of people willing to buy apps.

In particular, the iPhone has trained peoople to buy apps at $0.99. Crappy price, but at least they're buying. Android revenues are low compared to the iPhone in spite of their marketshare--the top apps are something like 400-500/day according to the developers I've talked to. You can make a living at it, but you can't (yet) start hiring comfortably.

Wake me up when the app market is competitive with the iPhone.

And since when being conditioned to buy apps has been associated with good or desired phone ownership?

Higher chance of having better apps. Games don't really survive in a low-profit environment -- graphics/sounds/assets costs money usually. There aren't a lot of great open source games.

> In particular, the iPhone has trained peoople to buy apps at $0.99.

is that so ?

> Crappy price, but at least they're buying.

I thought the vast majority of the downloads was free, but I definitely could be wrong.

is that so?

No. Of the currently top grossing apps, only about 20% are $0.99.

I thought the vast majority of the downloads was free, but I definitely could be wrong.

You are right: http://metrics.admob.com/2010/02/january-2010-mobile-metrics...

True, but you also take the risk of arbitrary app rejection with the iPhone market.

> Wake me up when the app market is competitive with the iPhone.

the money market isn't in small end-user games. It's in custom business apps, where you are paid for initial developement and licensing by a company for a specific product that they want their employees to use.

At least, that's how I see it.

One thing people forget in this is the handheld that is not a phone. 60+% of Apple's market is the iPod Touch and now iPad as an addition. Until Android has a good handheld that is not a phone and a pad then it won't match.

66% of devices in Apple's eco are iPod Touches who buy 50% of the apps. The app market is still Apple and will be for a short while yet. Granted Apple is silly not to sell on other carriers, but iPhone is only half the picture when it comes to development.

http://metrics.admob.com/2010/02/january-2010-mobile-metrics...

... Apple is silly not to sell on other carriers ...

It's not Apple's decision. Even if their AT&T exclusivity were expired, Apple couldn't just start selling a device on e.g. Verizon.

Consumers are trained to expect several hundred dollars worth of subsidies when "buying" a phone. The carriers control the subsidy, so they decide what devices go on their network. (Initially in 2007 Apple tried the waters with an unsubsidised $600 iPhone. That didn't work then, and competition is much more fierce now.)

The surge in Android marketshare is strong evidence that Verizon can do very well for themselves without Apple. I'm not sure if Apple's bargaining chips are very strong in this game anymore.

The thing to remember about subsidies is that it's the consumer that pays them, not the carrier. Its just diluted into the monthly plan, Verizon would do the same. Switching carriers takes more effort than switching phones for many if not most people. I think the biggest concern for android is if the iphone crosses that bridge it becomes a head-on comparison of the two. At this stage My opininon is that the iphone would squeeze them out due to momentum.

The consumer pays the subsidy in the end, but the carrier decides which device gets the subsidy and how large it is. For example, you can't buy a Samsung Android phone full-price, then bring it to AT&T asking them to give you a $300 discount because you'll be using this device on their network for the next two years. That's essentially how subsidies work in other countries.

This gives the American carriers tremendous negotiation power over device manufacturers, who have no choice but to abide because there's no alternative avenue for selling their products.

(Nokia has tried for years to market unlocked phones in the US, with a resounding lack of success.)

In the UK the iPhone is now selling on at least three of the big four carriers. (I think the missing one is T-Mobile.)

You can even get an iPhone on Tesco Mobile, which is a bit like seeing a WalMart branded one! (Tesco is an MVNO for one of the big networks.)

For the US market I suspect that the reason they don't sell on other networks is because Apple doesn't want to make a non-GSM version and no other GSM carrier is big enough to be worth losing AT&Ts full marketing support.

US sales are definitely a direct reflection of AT&Ts iPhone exclusivity.

Last quarter was essentially the first time Verizon had really good Android phones on offer. And the market of people who choose network first has been starved for a really good consumer smartphone.

Congratulations are due to HTC and Google; the Incredible is a great phone. But I don't think anyone believes this is a market result of Android vs iPhone.

Is it too early to start saying "I told you so" yet?

I'm going to hold off on the taunting until Android sales beat iPhone + iPod Touch + iPad, which could still be awhile. But oh I will be taunting so so much when that time comes.

Why is this relevant? iPods and iPads have nothing to do with cell phones, except that Apple happens to use the same OS for all three.

It's relevant if you're selling apps

In that case, you want to target Windows and Blackberry instead of OS X and iPhone OS.

("NDP Group’s smartphone survey placed the iPhone with 21%, Android platform with 28%, and Blackberry with 36%.")

er, is that a serious comment or sarcasm?

Cell phones are just a special case of mobile computing gadgets you carry around with you. The fact that you can only do traditional carrier calls on an iPhone and not on a Touch or iPad is just a very small detail compared to the whole experience.

It's relevant because it's a better comparison if you're a developer thinking about committing heavily to one platform or the other. A comparison of one cherry-picked device from one lineup versus many devices from another gives you no useful information for making that decision.

Or, more pertinently: if the headline had been "all models of iPhone plus all models of iPod Touch plus all models of iPad, combined, outsell (insert one and only one Android device)", wouldn't you have been jumping all over it for this very reason?

You should also throw in iPod shuffles and the Mighty Mouse if you are going to just be making up arbitrary, non-competitive market space, thresholds.

Who expected Apple to own the market?

From day one the iPhone was a premium price / premium experience product with a user base that developers would work hard to access.

Android is already a sloppy mess for developers, and for many traditional consumers.

It's like the Mac vs. PC battles, except this time the market is much more accessible for the average consumer ($500 vs. $5000 unadjusted no less!) and, as such, many times more profitable for Apple who uniquely owns the hardware, the software, and the content delivery channel.

I'm not sure about US pricing but here in the UK Android devices are similarly priced to the iPhone.

In the US, you can get a Droid running Android for $20. Compared to a iPhone 3G for $99 or a 3GS for $199. Both require a 2-year contract.

People want a winner and a loser.

They also want to be on the winning side, whichever one that is. They'll argue and argue forever trying to convince everyone that they're right and you're wrong.

I'm a big Android fan but I'm also a realist. The reason for shrinking iPhone sales is the public waiting for the next iteration of the phone. Nobody wants a handset that's obsolete in a month. Show me these numbers in June.

You are overestimating how mainstream cares for new models. iPhone is (or at least was) status symbol and personal toy, people don't care much for technical specification or hardware generations.

For example, see how well 3G was selling after 3GS was introduced.

The 3G continued selling well after the 3GS was introduced because Apple lowered the price to $99 with contract.

It continued to sell well outside US too.

There's also the other problem: saturation. Everyone who I know who wants to use an iphone already has one. A number will upgrade when the next one comes out.

I have an ipod touch, but don't want to have to carry that much size/weight to have phone service.

I'd like to see the results of sales in Australia, since the iPhone is pretty much on every major carrier over here. As the article states, Verizon had that buy-one-get-one-free deal, that would definitely push sales up. And when they have Android on a handset on all carriers that helps as well. All more reason for Apple to drop ATT as an exclusive carrier. Join the rest of the world and get it on all carriers.

They don't have an offering on Verizon and some others because they don't have a CDMA version of the phone. With the networks soon moving to whatever 4G is, there's not much point in Apple making a CDMA phone now.

4G is not really a replacement for CDMA. You don't need a 10/1Mbps connection to send highly-compressed voice, and even as 4G is rolled out, the networks are not going to decommission their 3G equipment. (Consider GSM, where you have HSDPA/UMTS, EDGE, and GSM all as the "same network". WiMax will supplement CDMA, not replace it. And I assume the idea is to move bulk bandwidth from CDMA to WiMax so that the CDMA network has more call capacity.)

Since Verizon is doing an LTE overlay on top of their CDMA network it seems likely CDMA will be around for another 5-10 years. At some point it will exist simply for redundancy in the same way GSM carriers simulcast 2G and 3G today. I don't think we'll see any pure LTE-only phones for a few years. They'll all be LTE/CDMA, LTE/GSM, or LTE/GSM-CDMA capable. So it probably isn't a total waste for Apple to devote the resources to CDMA now with plans of moving to LTE/CDMA or LTE/GSM-CDMA in the next couple of years. I think either way Apple will have to support CDMA in some form if not to reach parity with other LTE/CDMA handsets that will be more reliable and may have better coverage in rural areas (ie, some coverage versus none)

I don't think we've any of the major Android phones apart from the HTC Desire since the Magic. No Droid or Nexus one. So the results would definitely be very skewed towards the iPhone. I just hope the Australian carriers wake up to what they are missing out on.

Quoting NPD Group's online survey as fact is highly suspect. Take a read of the methodology in the original press release. http://www.npd.com/press/releases/press_100510.html

NPD trades surveys for sweepstakes. They are the Zynga of market research. Take a look at what survey respondents say by reading the comments here: http://www.imreportcard.com/other/npd-online-research

One of the cleverest survey questions I saw was in a bunch of questions asking for a 1-10 response, "How many eggs in a half dozen?" thus weeding out all the people who are just clicking through the survey randomly for a sweepstakes award. (or those too ignorant to know what a half dozen is)

But ignorant people spend money too.

Not knowing much about the Verizon buy-one-get-one deal, does that mean that their are actually only 1/2 as many android and blackberry phones sold last quarter that are in use?

No because the free phones would still be in use, but the person using it may not have gotten a Android/RIM phone if not for the deal.

Example: A father has a smartphone from work. His wife likes using it to check her e-mail, use apps, etc. so when they buy new phones they buy a smart phone for her to use. If there is no b1g1 than their teenager would have just gotten a regular phone but because of the deal they have an extra "free" smartphone that they give to him/her to use.

So free it costs $30 a month to use?

Ha! You're confusing logic and human behavior.

The iPhone has been out for years and encompasses a single device from a single manufacturer. Sales to date prove the success. Android is shiny and new, any handset manufacturer can slap it onto their collection of plastic and glass. I'd be more worried if Android as a phone OS wasn't outselling iPhone.

In other news, Ford Focus is outselling BMW X5, who wulddathunk?

Android is a platform, like Linux for server market, so you can do anything, while iPhone OS is a totally restricted, proprietary business ecosystem, and you must obey the rules.

Android is a platform, iPhoneOS is a platform. Android is an open ecosystem, iPhoneOS is a vertically integrated, proprietary ecosystem.

FTFY

How could I modify or add some new functionality to IPhoneOS kernel?

In other news, McDonalds sells more burgers than many better places. Mmm.

Although true, this is seemingly biased as Android usage spans a plethora of phones whereas the iPhone is a singular phone on a singular carrier. It's a very tough comparison to make. This would be similar to comparing the number of copies of a single book being sold under one publisher to the entirety of O'Reilly book sales. Kudos for even coming close.

Side note: I do not own a single mac product. No biases.

Although true, this is seemingly biased as Android usage spans a plethora of phones whereas the iPhone is a Cingular phone on a Cingular carrier.

FTFY

The funny thing is I actually meant SINGULAR, not the company formerly known as cingular =)

I know, I was just having some fun. :)

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