Like any two technology behemoths, Adobe and Microsoft have certainly had their ups and downs. But now that Google and Apple are looming over them in a number of ways, it seems as if the two may be courting one another in order to help re-level the playing field. According to a New York Times report — which was crafted after collecting reports from “employees and consultants to the companies who were involved in the discussions that took place” — Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen recently met at the latter’s headquarters for a closed-door meeting. Purportedly, the meeting went on for over an hour and covered a variety of topics, with one of ‘em being Apple and its newfound dominance in the mobile market. Shockingly enough, a “possible acquisition of Adobe by Microsoft were among the options” of stopping the skyrocketing growth. The report accurately notes that such a deal makes entirely more sense now that Redmond isn’t exactly the 800 pound gorilla that it was before Android and iOS hit the mainstream, though details beyond these assumptions were few and far betwixt. Whatever happens, no one can blame Steve Jobs for not giving Adobe every possible reason to hit Apple with everything it’s got — even if that involves buddying up with Ballmer and co.
BlackBerry OS? Dead! iOS? Dead! Symbian? Never stood a chance. Android’s exponential growth has today been illustrated by Nielsen‘s statisticians who present us with the above chart of recent US smartphone purchases. It shows that over the six months leading up to August 2010, 32 percent of American new phone buyers had grabbed themselves a device with Google’s OS on board, which is comfortably ahead of RIM at 26 percent and Apple at 25 percent. These results corroborate NPD’s figures on the matter — which peg Android at 33 percent of new US purchases — and reiterate the idea that Android is headed to a place whose name starts with D and ends with omination. One more chart showing total market share can be found after the break (hint: BlackBerry still reigns supreme overall).
Considering that Steve Ballmer himself said that Microsoft “missed a cycle” in the smartphone sales universe, we guess it’s not too shocking to see Android leap past Windows Mobile and Friends in ComScore’s latest US smartphone report. If you’ll recall, we saw back in July that Google was tailing Microsoft by the slimmest of margins, and now that the latest data is live, it’s clearer than ever that Android is rising while the competition is slipping. The research firm’s MobiLens report found that Google’s market share in the US smartphone sector surged five percent in the three month average ending April 2010, while RIM sank 1.8 percent, Apple 1.3 percent, Microsoft 2.2 percent and Palm… well, Palm remained flat with just 4.9 percent of the pie. Of course, one has to assume that Microsoft loyalists are holding off on upgrades until Windows Phone 7 hits the market, but there’s little doubt that the flurry of higher-end Android phones has done nothing but help Google’s cause. And if Gingerbread actually brings support for serious 3D gaming? Look out, world.
It’s terribly difficult to get reliable statistics, as numbers tend to vary drastically depending upon whom you ask, but if you’re inclined to believe that Androidismoppingup Apple and RIM’s declining mobile mindshare in the US, you’ll find nothing but corroboration from Quantcast. The analytics firm reckons a full one-quarter of mobile web traffic stateside comes from devices running Google’s OS, though it’s important to know that the iOS tallies apparently don’t include the web-friendly iPad. You also might want to note that this is mobile web traffic here — these days, we spend an increasing amount of our internet time in apps — and since we’re on a roll with the disclaimers, let’s just add that these numbers have nothing to do with a company’s financial success. Nokia can attest to that.
Last quarter we reported on some pretty stellar growth numbers for Android in the global smartphone marketplace. Back then, Google’s OS had a 9.6 percent slice of the pie, but today that’s ballooned to a robust 17.2 percent, meaning that in terms of end-user sales over the last three months, Android has nearly matched RIM’s BlackBerry sales. That’s quite the feat when you consider that a year ago the latter was shifting ten times more units than the former. This extraordinary growth rate has narrowed down Symbian’s lead at the top, in spite of Nokia’s favorite OS actually shipping on more phones this year, while the big loser of the quarter has to be Windows Mobile, which contracted both in terms of market share and actual shipments.
Overall, smartphone sales were up by 50 percent year-on-year, according to both Gartner and IDC, while Gartner adds that mobile devices as a whole grew at a tamer 13.3 percent pace. In terms of phone manufacturers’ global share, Nokia and Samsung have held on to their top positions, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have experienced some uncomfortable shrinkage, and HTC, RIM and Apple have capitalized to expand their portions. Looking over to IDC’s smartphone share data shows, again, that all smartphone makers are growing remarkably well, but it does highlight HTC (129 percent) and Samsung (173 percent) as really improving their presence in the sector. The reason? Android, Android, Android.
Step aside, BlackBerrys and iPhones, the American consumer has voted with his wallet and picked Android as his favorite flavor in the quarter just gone. NPD’s number crunchers have just announced their findings for Q2 2010, concluding that 33 percent of phones sold during the period had Android on board. This marks the first time in eons (Q4 2007, to be more precise) that RIM has not held the crown of most purchased smartphone OS on US soil, with its BlackBerrys accounting for 28% of the market and Apple’s iPhone occupying third spot with 22%. Motorola and HTC are the key suspects fingered for Android’s continuing ascent, with the “large screen allure” of their handsets playing well with the buying public. Skip after the break for a more detailed breakdown.
Disclaimer: NPD’s Ross Rubin is a contributor to Engadget.
Nielsen has its own angle on the smartphone numbers game out today, and the results vaguely resemble the numbers from Canalys. Perhaps more interesting than the ever present market share tug-of-war (Nielsen pegs Google, RIM, and Apple at 27 percent, 33 percent, and 23 percent in sales to new smartphone subscribers, respectively) a note on brand loyalty turns out ugly for BlackBerry: while 89 percent of iPhone owners plan on getting another iPhone, and 71 percent of Android buyers plan to re-up, only 42 percent of BlackBerry owners plan to stick around. The defectors are pretty evenly split, with 29 percent planning to go iPhone, and 21 percent to go Android. That compares to 2 and 3 percent in the iPhone and Android camps planning a move to BlackBerry. We’ll see if BlackBerry 6 can solve this little problem for RIM, but the few tweaks we’ve seen so far seem hardly capable of stemming the flow.
We knew Android phones were selling like gangbusters — Google has been none too shy in telling us as much — but numbers were slightly less clear in a larger context. Well, if a new report by Canalys is to be believed, those numbers are just fine in a larger context. Canalys claims that in Q2 Android was up a whopping 886 percent over last year’s sales during this time period (remember, the original Droid didn’t come out until November), and those wild sales put it at 34 percent of the US market, compared to RIM’s 32 percent and Apple’s 21.7 share. Of course, RIM has a big launch on the way, and we’re not sure how much of the iPhone 4′s heady run this report captures, so things could naturally look different for Q3. Also, it’s worth noting that the breakdown of phones actually in use is of course dramatically different. Still, nobody is doing that bad: the smartphone market is up 64 percent year-over-year, and Apple and RIM grew 61 percent and 41 percent, respectively. Oh, and remember Nokia? Yeah, they’re still beating the world with a 38 percent market share and 41 percent growth. Check out the press release after the break for all the percentages your heart could ever desire.
Slip on your fine silk smoking jacket and light up a victory cigar US Android fans, the latest comScore numbers are out for the three-month period ending in May 2010. The most notable trend spotted was a 4 point (up from 9.0% to 13.0%) quarterly increase in Google’s Android market share as all other smartphone OS subscribers declined. ComScore also saw Motorola’s slide continue, slipping behind LG now for a third place US finish as Samsung continued to bolster its dominant position. Expect the numbers to be jostled a bit next quarter when Apple’s iPhone 4 numbers are factored in. Just don’t expect to see the Android numbers suffer, especially with the Samsung Galaxy S launching on all the major US carriers before the quarter is done.
We oftentimes hear raw numbers of apps bandied about in mobile OS comparisons, but we rarely get any idea of just how many developers are behind the scenes working for each platform. This is the void of knowledge filled by AppStore HQ today, who have gone to their dev directory — claimed to be a complete listing of all 55,000+ coders whose work is currently available for consumption in the Apple App Store or Android Market — and stacked them into neat piles of Apple, Google and Gapple programmers. It’s immediately apparent that single-platform development is the norm (with Apple holding the predictable edge), but AppStore HQ also provides a list of some of the most well known (and well funded) apps doing the cross-platform dance, and suggests that a movement is afoot toward making software available for both sets of users. Then again, the BNET article below points out the difficulties faced by smaller outfits, who might struggle to find the resources required to port their content over and maintain the skills required to be multi-platform, resulting in them sticking to one environment, irrespective of what allures others might throw their way. Give them both a read, we say.
