Android Smartphones are Taking the Market

There is no question that competition in the smartphone market is fast and fierce. In October last year, we wrote how Android was taking the market by storm and it was becoming a three-way race back then. Well, the latest stats are out and the results are not only confirming the top three contenders but that the war is playing out way faster than forecast.

Worldwide, 36% of mobile customers now use Android devices, 18% use iPhone and 13% use BlackBerries. In the U.S. Android holds 36% while 26% use iPhones and 23% are Blackberry users. In Canada, of the 6.6 million users that own smartphones, 42% had a BlackBerry, 31% had an iPhone and 12.2% had an Android phone. It gets a bit confusing with consumers vs. business vs. prosumers[1] but the reality is that Google is capturing market share big time and fast.

A key question- is it price or function? Google gives its Android software to handset manufacturers without charge, making money instead by taking a small percentage of revenues from independent application-sellers as well as from advertisements that run inside some apps. So from an upfront investment, handset manufacturers don’t need to charge for the upfront OS costs and this is the main reason why Google smartphones are very competitively priced. The perception is that Google offers virtually all the functions that Blackberry and iPhone have[2].

Another question- how will this play out in the business market? The reality here is that the ‘prosumer’ is becoming a dominant factor in how business will operate in the future. In our last blog, we mentioned how the iPad- a seemingly consumer oriented tablet- is being standardized or looked at by well over half of corporate America. Well, in the smartphone war, Google and Apple are attacking the business mobile handset market once coveted by RIM and making huge gains. At hereiammobile, we’ve developed our mobile app to accommodate the surge in iPhone and Android handsets being used in business. What is surprising to us is the speed in adoption.

RIM has virtually owned the Canadian business space up until two years ago but it is aggressively being scooped up by Google’s Android smartphones and Apple’s iPhone. And with 25 million iPads vs. 250,000 RIM Playbooks and ever more Google tablets coming on-line daily, RIM could lose more market even faster than expected.

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[1] The term Prosumer is being used more and more in describing the new user of technology and making decisions to accommodate their business and social requirements

[2] You could argue about how ‘secure’ and safe Google email is vs. BB or how intuitive apps are offered vs. iPhone but for price vs. function the users are saying they don’t care