Android And iOS Capture 91.1% Global Market Share

IDC has released its the latest numbers that it has gathered about the smartphone industry, and they show that Android and iOS have captured a combined 91.1% mobile operating system market share. While we all knew that they both accounted for the large majority of the market, the number remind us how much of an uphill battle it is for competitors like Windows Phone, Blackberry, Ubuntu mobile, Firefox OS and Samsung’s Tizen.Windows Phone has been rising a little, going from 15% to 2.6%, but this is not really affecting Android and iOS, which are battling far away for the first and second place. At this point, it seems that that Apple won’t be able to overcome the broad selection and vast range of prices & design that Android handsets can offer. However, Apple has most likely much better profit margins, and this is important too.

Year over year, iOS has lost 2% of market share to its competitors and Android has jumped from 52.9% last year to an astonishing 70.1% in Q4 2012. We expect Windows Phone to continue rising slowly as the Microsoft OS gets more+better apps in its store. However without real leading-edge hardware and features, this is still a difficult fight. Although pundits say that it’s “the user experience” that counts (it’s true), it is also fair to say that “specs and features” matter just as much.

And it’s not because people use them, it’s because people like to feel like they are getting something more when they pay hundreds of dollars for a phone. Also, Google has done a great job at methodically addressing the issues that people had with Android, and at this point, there are no real platform-wide problems. What is your own opinion about where we will be in the next two years? Leave a comment below.

Hubert Nguyen
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: analyst, Android, Apple Inc, Google, idc, iOS, Microsoft, Windows Phone