Apple may wish this was an April Fool's joke, but new data released today from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows Android has taken a lead in the U.S. market for smartphone sales for the quarter ended February 2013. The U.S. market has been a stronghold for Apple, which managed to maintain control of the market despite the growth of Android throughout other parts of the world. However, Kantar's latest consumer panel, which focuses on sales, shows Android had 51.2% of smartphone sales for the period compared with 45.4% for the same period a year ago.
According to Kantar's data, Apple's iOS landed in second place with 43.5% of sales for the quarter, a decline of 3.5% from the 47% share Apple enjoyed for the same period a year ago. Meanwhile, even lowly Windows managed to improve to 4.1% of sales. In case you were wondering, Blackberry has sunk all the way to only 0.7% of sales for the February 2013 quarter.
Kantar's analysis shows Samsung leading the way in sales, thanks in large part to price reductions, so much so that Sprint is starting to see its numbers impacted by the success of Samsung's leading devices. Verizon is still the top carrier for all smartphones with AT&T in second place. Kantar's research showed Samsung managed to entice buyers away from other brands, with 38% of buyers switching away from LG, HTC and Blackberry devices. Despite Samsung's success in this area, brands like Motorola and Nokia saw small increases in their sales. Among Samsung buyers, Kantar found “handset cost” and “carrier brand” to be the leading factors in the decision-making process.
Kantar believes the sales share figures are a leading indicator for market share trends, which means Android may be seeing more good news in the future.
source: Kantar Worldpanel
via: BGR
The plain fact is, if it weren’t for a weird fringe element of hardcore fans, Apple would have died off a long time ago.
Apple will eventually end up with 5% like with their computers. They always take the market by storm, then fail to move their product forward developing an arrogance that what they have, nobody can touch. We’ve seen this movie play out with the Apple II and original Mac and we know how it ends.
I would have had the same reaction a couple years ago. But now Apple is ran by a bean counter, not Steve Jobs. Under Tim Cook we’re starting to see larger iPhones and smaller iPads. They’re chasing their competition now instead of standing their ground. Apple has become a luxury commodity company instead of being a boutique computer company. So what we’ll see next is larger phone screens to close the gap with the now standard 4.7-4.8″ screen size, and we’ll also see a cheapening in materials used to drive the product down market enough that more people buy them. They won’t die again this time. They have so much money that they’ll claw and fight to stay relevant.