Yes, you read the headline correctly: Android will overtake the iPhone by 2012. According to analysts at Informa Telecoms & Media, Apple’s lovely iPhone device is expected to fall behind Google Android within the next four years. Analysts at the company claim that Android’s open source operating system will keep production costs low and open Android up to more customers than the iPhone.
Analysts say that competition among smartphones has changed the cell phone market, and Gavin Byrne noted:
“While demand in the mid tier will fall away during 2009, sales of new smartphones will grow by over 30 per cent to 211.2 million units, driven by innovative new devices and operator subsidies designed to promote mobile data consumption….By 2013 almost four in every 10 handsets sold worldwide will be a smartphone.”
I’m no qualified market analyst, but Informa seems right about the competition between Apple and Google’s marquee mobile platforms. Android will overtake the iPhone because Android is an operating system open to use on any device and any carrier. Meanwhile, the iPhone is locked away in the AT&T dungeons in the U.S. market on one device. Android on the other hand is expected to appear on phones from Samsung, LG, HTC, etc., and delivered to a variety of carriers.
Android as open source naturally exposes the platform to a much larger consumer base that iPhone can’t hold off. Even if the iPhone is seen as the “cooler” item and has the advantage of being around longer, sheer numbers make it hard for Apple to stave off Android outpacing the iPhone in market share. There’s no app or feature good enough to remain king forever.
[VnuNet]
March 6th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
I would love to see Android overtake the iphone in 3 years, but I’m not convinced that it will happen.
I agree that its open source nature makes Android available to more devices and, thus, people – but just as no portable media player has vanquished the iPod, it will be difficult to remove the elite cachet of having an Apple device in order to effect a shift in consumer preference.
March 7th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I hope your are right in your prediction, but like Ef says, it’s going to be hard to beat all of the status and cachet marketing that the ipod/iphone has built up.
I was telling a guy I know about why Android and open technologies are better, and his response was, “I don’t care. Everyone who is cool I know has an iPhone, so I’m getting one too.”
It’s hard to argue with people who only think in those terms.
March 19th, 2009 at 1:28 am
“I was telling a guy I know about why Android and open technologies are better, and his response was, “I don’t care. Everyone who is cool I know has an iPhone, so I’m getting one too.”
It’s hard to argue with people who only think in those terms.”
And on the other side I know several people going to android simply because they “don’t want to use an apple product”. They’ve never used android and couldn’t tell you why they’re going to use it over an iPhone other than “it isn’t apple”.
Android maybe better for some, certainly not all. Certainly not me. And believing that the only reason someone would use an iphone over android is because of ’status’ is being delusional.
March 24th, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Hi Guys,
This article is not stating that the G1 is better than the iPhone.
It talks about the facts that are currently proven from Android Operating system.
In other words, let’s put it this way; Android has made more impressions than the iPhone when it was first released. The iPhone was released as a 2G Phone but it never had all the features, apps, and quickness of the G1. Little by little Apple started releasing all those apps that you can see now. Right now still the iPhone doesn’t have picture messaging, copy and paste, and other things.
What I’m saying is for the short time that Android Operating system has been out and all the improvements they have made it promises more for the future than the iPhone. Apple is very complicated and they are really big at pushing mainly their products and partners which is not good for all of us. Android will let anyone do an application without too much licensing crap and Flash is coming soon for the G1.
Duniel
June 11th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
With a lot of Android phones coming soon by different manufacturers, it is expected that Android can outpace iPhone by the end of 2010.
Motorola, Samsung, LG, SonyErrision, Acer, Asus, HTC, Lenovo and a lot of manufacturers in China, are going to release their products at the end of this year. The sales of iPhone is about 12,000,000 which is not a lot.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Like your page, good reading, thanks.