It’s an established fact that Android is the dominant mobile OS around the world. Estimates claim that Android owns from just over 50 percent to nearly 80 percent of the mobile device market, but Apple is winning where it counts—money. According to data released by Apple it seems the iPhone money train is still steaming along nicely with a record-breaking 13 million iPhone 6S and iPhones 6S Plus units sold in just the opening weekend.
Apple iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus side-by-side (Click Image To Enlarge)
The iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are really just getting started. On October 9 the devices will become available in 40 additional markets, including Italy, Mexico, Russia, and Spain. Apple says the new smartphones will be available in more than 130 countries by the end of the year, which means the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus sales figures will just keep climbing.
Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said.
“Sales for iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have been phenomenal, blowing past any previous first weekend sales results in Apple’s history. Customers’ feedback is incredible and they are loving 3D Touch and Live Photos, and we can’t wait to bring iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus to customers in even more countries on October 9.”
Evolution of the Apple iPhone from the 5S to the huge iPhone 6S Plus (Click Image To Enlarge)
As a whole, Android will sell far more devices. The vast majority of those devices are typically Galaxy devices—which Samsung sells in massive volume. Despite outselling Apple significantly in terms of volume, though, Samsung makes a fraction of the profit that Apple does. Apple is making an estimated 92 percent of the profit in the mobile industry, followed by Samsung at a distant second with 15 percent. It adds up to more than 100 percent because the rest of the Android and other mobile device makers actually lose money according to IDC.
iPhone 5S Comparison to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus Technical Specifications (Click Image To Enlarge)
This isn’t a new trend either. I wrote about the discrepancy in profit in the mobile industry back in 2013:
"It turns out that two thirds of the devices that make up Android’s 81 percent market share are cheap “junk phones”. The remainder is primarily Samsung, which makes up 39.9 percent of the total Android devices shipped.
There is another area where dominant market share isn’t turning out to be an advantage for Android. In spite of a greater than six-to-one advantage in device market share, Android doesn’t sell more apps, or generate more advertising revenue than Apple."
It turns out that two thirds of the devices that make up Android’s 81 percent market share are cheap “junk phones”. The remainder is primarily Samsung, which makes up 39.9 percent of the total Android devices shipped.
There is another area where dominant market share isn’t turning out to be an advantage for Android. In spite of a greater than six-to-one advantage in device market share, Android doesn’t sell more apps, or generate more advertising revenue than Apple.
COMMENTARY: The worldwide smartphone market grew 13.0% year over year in 2015 Q2, with 341.5 million shipments, according to data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. This growth is primarily due to gains experienced in emerging markets such as APEJ and MEA. This quarter's shipments were slightly lower than forecast and IDC expects to see a noticeable slowdown in smartphone shipments in 2015 as China joins North America and Western Europe in a more mature growth pattern. Android dominated the market with an 82.8% share in 2015 Q2. Samsung reasserted its global leadership with a renewed focus on lower-cost smartphones.
Android dominated the smartphone market with a share of 82.8%. Samsung, the #1 contributor, had lower volumes QoQ and YoY. This comes in the midst of an underwhelming performance by its flagship releases, Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. However, the Android share has seen a rise compared to 2015Q1, with strong growth in unit shipments by other players such as Huawei, Xiaomi and ZTE.
iOS saw its market share for 2015Q2 decline by 22.3% QoQ with 47.5 million shipments. Despite the seasonal decline, Apple enjoyed success thanks to consumers' insatiable appetite for the larger screened iOS devices. The popularity of the iPhone 6 Plus continued in many key markets including China, where the overall smartphone market saw a revival in growth by 6.7%.
Windows Phone experienced a QoQ decline of 4.2% with a total of 8.8 million units shipped this quarter. Since its acquisition of Nokia in 2014, Microsoft has been revamping the product portfolio with Microsoft branded Lumia devices. But now that Microsoft has decided to take a loss on its Nokia purchase, the scenario for Windows Phone looks bleaker. Acer is a new entry into the top five in this segment. Most other vendors took a beating in shipments QoQ, with the exception of Samsung, which showed an 8.5% increase with its ATIV range of phones.
Blackberry OS, which saw a small increase in some regions, continued to decline in growth globally. The bulk of its volume shipments came from the Blackberry Classic.
Courtesy of an article dated September 28, 2015 appearing in Forbes, an article dated August 25, 2015 appearing in IDC and an article dated September 9, 2015 appearing in TechCrunch
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