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iOS and Android Combined For Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter (macrumors.com) 191

An anonymous reader writes: The research firm Gartner has crunched some numbers and found that Android and iOS accounted for a record 99.1% worldwide market share in the second calendar quarter of 2016, which is compared to 96.8% in the year-ago period. What some may view as even more shocking is that Android accounted for 86.2% of the market share in the second quarter, up from 82.2% a year ago. Meanwhile, iOS lost some ground as it dropped to 12.9% market share from 14.6% in the year-ago period. It's no surprise that Windows and BlackBerry have been losing market share. They dropped to 0.6% and 0.1% market share worldwide respectively. Just six years ago, BlackBerry and Symbian operating systems were industry leaders. Now, they're industry losers. Which third-party operating system has what it takes to take on the establishment?
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iOS and Android Combined For Record 99% of Smartphone Sales Last Quarter

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  • by The-Ixian ( 168184 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @05:37PM (#52728705)

    Want to buy a third party? hahaha, go ahead, throw your money away!

    • by Anonymous Coward

      Don't blame me, I voted for Kane.

    • by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:00PM (#52728869)

      The question is can Google move Android/Chrome to the desktop fast enough to capitalize on their phone dominance. Apple isn't showing any interest in OSX anymore. Linux has to wait for someone to win and then copy.

      Essentially you have Google and Microsoft in a duel where the first to finish assembling the gun in front of them wins. It looks like nothing is happening but as soon as one of them gets an OS and app library that solves both desktop and mobile the race will be over in a near instant.

      Major innovation started and stopped with the shift to capacitive touch/multi-touch touch screens and the availability of 2G Edge data. People scoff at Windows Mobile 5 using a stylus, but anyone who has tried to use a resistive touch screen with their finger knows why styluses were necessary. Apple got there first but their first-mover success is rapidly evaporating and they've lost all advantage they once had on hardware quality and design both in mobile and the desktop market.

      So the question becomes who gets Photoshop first? Windows Mobile as a Universal Application or Google as an android app for the Chromebook?

      • Couldn't Adobe put out a web only version of Photoshop that would "run" on anything, if they really wanted to? They would have to have some serious cloud processing power. But, why not?
        • ... and bandwidth... I often work on PSDs that are a couple GB in size, or more.
          • by AK Marc ( 707885 )
            You store the file on the server, do the work on the server, and all you do is display it locally to work on it, and download a local copy occasionally.
            • And, to display it locally? You need to send all the layers to the browser and, BAM, there you have it, you're essentially sending the entire PSD. Plus, have you looked at Adobe's cloud storage pricing? CC for Teams is the cheapest option at $75/seat for up to 100GB storage per seat. I'll pass, thanks.
        • Yes, what we do absolutely need on the internet is more insecure software.

          Anyone. Anyone but Adobe.

      • Essentially you have Google and Microsoft in a duel where the first to finish assembling the gun in front of them wins.

        Chrome nor Android is a desktop OS replacement.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @10:17PM (#52730165) Homepage

        Nah, there is no such thing as an operating system for typical consumer targeted appliances, it pretty much disappears in the background. M$ is dead on consumer appliances and with the Windows 10 probe leaving a permanent memory of 'M$ watching you masturbate' in everyone's minds, never able to cum (tee hee) back. Android with it's someone messy java layer looks to be a lock in. Now can that java layer be fixed to provide better access for high end games and be an extension to a more typical Linux distribution like Ubuntu, to provide greater access to interactive content.

        Apple of course is not so much loosing market share, their high end market remains the same, they are simply not picking up the rapidly expanding low end of the market for smart phones, where the much more competitive and diverse Android systems are taking by storm (so larger market and Apples percentage drops but they retain the same sales because their part of the market was already buying smart phones years ago). Apple pushing privacy was a really smart well timed moved and did real damage to M$ on consumer products (they now hate using windows no matter what the public relations firms claim, that whole windows anal probe 10 a really stupid move by M$ and now demanding people pay for the probe even more insulting, paying to have their privacy stolen, talk about arrogance, mind boggling).

        • The problem is Apple is overly complacent.

          Today you can write a top app for Windows UWP, Android and iOS in short order. You can even maintain an app on all 3. But these are really truly "Apps". And the dev effort is "Only" a couple million for most. They're glorified websites by and large. Apple is happily sitting on the premium customers and losing market share but enjoying app parity or even superiority. The question becomes though what do you write for when you want to write the next Autocad or

        • Now can that java layer be fixed to provide better access for high end games and be an extension to a more typical Linux distribution like Ubuntu, to provide greater access to interactive content.

          You don't need to fix the java layer. You don't even need the games to target android.
          Linux is a complex and flexible beast (chroot, containers, etc.)
          There are already platforms out there where the android userland is co-sharing the phone with another userland.

          e.g.: Jolla's Sailfish OS is a full blown GNU/Linux platform, using a QML interface on Wayland.
          Still it also has Alien Dalvik, a port of the android machine and userspace so you can tap into the android echo system and run most of its games an apps.
          (t

      • Linux has to wait for someone to win and then copy.

        Android is Linux [wikipedia.org]. It's what Linux is capable of if the developers of the GUI actually give a damn about making it easy for non-programmers to use. It's been simplified a bit too much for desktop use. But putting back what they stripped out should be a lot easier than having to develop it from scratch.

        Like immortality [wikipedia.org], Android has achieved the market dominance Linux advocates have always dreamed of, just not in quite the way they wanted.

      • by Dahamma ( 304068 )

        Apple isn't showing any interest in OSX anymore.

        Wait, what? Apple is on target to make well over $20B in revenue on Macs this year. The upcoming release (Sierra) has Siri and Apple Pay integrated (and a preview release of a new filesystem to replace HFS+ on SSDs, APFS). How the hell is that not showing interest?

        And here's a really fun stat: while Apple has between 7-9% share on laptops UNITS, they have ALMOST 50% SHARE ON LAPTOP REVENUE. Market share by units is much less interesting than revenue. High margins have always been Apple's bread and butt

    • Want to buy a third party? hahaha, go ahead, throw your money away!

      Well, unlike voting for a third party, with buying you actually get what you paid for instead of what the majority bought - even if what you got turns out as useless as predicted by others.

  • by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @05:41PM (#52728721) Journal

    Any day now, Windows Phone and Blackberry are gonna like totally rule the world!!!!

    • by zlives ( 2009072 )

      people don't buy OS, just interface or functionality. who knows what 6 years from now is going to look in this market!!

      • As with many other people's preferences, you end up with a smartphone that runs the software you want to run. Windows Phone never had much if any support by Google, while Android and iOS market places, or walled gardens, have software by Microsoft (access to Exchange, Skype for home and for business, Office among others). Third party software vendors did not embrace Windows Phone either. Tinder is not available as far as I can tell.
        • by BronsCon ( 927697 ) <social@bronstrup.com> on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:18PM (#52728961) Journal

          Tinder is not available as far as I can tell.

          What would be the point? Who wants to hook up with a Windows Phone user?

          • Does "love" (1) of any boundaries? Or of race or religion? Then it probably does not know of phone OS either!

            (1) Quotation marks are needed as this concept has different definitions depending on who you ask. "Friendship" has a new definition since Facebook was launched.

            • Does "love" have any boundaries?

              No, but apparently humor does...

            • > Does "love" (1) of any boundaries?

              Most people probably agree that love "confined" to the boundaries of adults is a "Good Thing" (TM).
              A few sicko's want that boundary expanded to include animals and children.
              Yet other immature people want that boundary shrunk to not include race or religion.

              The boundary is based on who you ask.

      • by stooo ( 2202012 )

        >> people don't buy OS, just interface or functionality.
        more precisely, People don't buy MS and RIM OS's :)

    • by mattyj ( 18900 )

      And Blackberry is making Android phones now.

      I keep waiting for Blackberry to change their name and start pretending they're someone else.

      • They'll call themselves Raspberry.

        As a bonus, that'll be the sound they'll make when anyone reminds them of how they used to dominate the mobile phone market.

    • That's going to be the day Linux takes over on the Desktop because you get your favorite distribution for free with every purchase of Half Life 3.

    • I know you're joking but Blackberry's problem was that they DID rule the world and thought that since they were on top they didn't need to make any changes - that the market would always clamor for what they offered because they ruled. By the time they actually faced reality, it was too late, they were a distant third behind Android and iOS, and were falling further behind. Had they not taken their being #1 for granted, they might have stayed on top, but hubris did them in.

      Windows is just an also-ran whose

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Nobody buys X because there's little software support, and nobody even knows it exists due to lack of market buzz. There's little software support and no market buzz because nobody buys X.

    Pretty hard to break out of that cycle. Sometimes it happens, but often out of sheer luck more than anything that can be intentionally duplicated. It was tried with Tizen, Maemo, FirefoxOS, and others, and all failed.

    These things tend to change over long times. We're just now after many decades ending the Windows monop

    • by Opportunist ( 166417 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:34PM (#52729061)

      Well, not to say it ain't so, but in this case you're looking at a market where the two current top dogs were rather late to the party and benefited from everyone else dropping the ball big time.

      Nokia was the de facto market leader but simply snoozed when the big change towards touch screens set in.
      Blackberry had the enterprise market firmly in their grasp, and not only did they have a lot of features enterprise users wanted, they also managed to make having a Blackberry as a manager an important status symbol. A decade ago you pretty much HAD to have a Blackberry to be taken serious in management circles. Look where they're now after a series of blunders and hubris.
      And while MS never really had a big market share in the phone business, they had every advantage on their side, they have the de facto standard on desktops and could have worked out something huge with phone + computer tie-ins, in a depth nobody else could achieve. They finally try that but ... too little, too late, and all the accomplish by it now is to piss off their desktop users.

      So, I cannot really say that this is one of those scenarios where the early bird gets the worm, grows big and keeps everyone else in its shadow so they can't grow as well. There were some serious mistakes made by the former market leaders and other competitors. Google and Apple won because they were able to predict better where the market is going and what consumers and business customers alike would want.

      That can change rapidly again. We're today at the point where cellphones get powerful enough to replace netbooks soon. My prediction would be that the manufacturer that manages to find the right gadget at the right time to capitalize on this and offer something that could make the cellphone replace current netbooks, you have the next market leader.

      • by mspohr ( 589790 )

        Looks like people are starting to think along these lines.
        These people have a shell with keyboard and display which uses your smartphone as the processor.
        https://www.kickstarter.com/pr... [kickstarter.com]

        • by stooo ( 2202012 )

          >> These people have a shell with keyboard and display which uses your smartphone as the processor.
          Does not really make sense.
          SOC cost are really low these days, so it's not the component to skip.
          You cannot even answer a phone call without unplugging the phone, or your computer goes black. That's really a no go.

          What would be nice is ARM SOC based laptops, and real sync possibilities between devices, which have no good solutions today !!

    • by tgv ( 254536 ) on Friday August 19, 2016 @02:16AM (#52730763) Journal

      I bought a Windows phone (last year) because I don't like Android (bad experiences with Samsung and Moto), and iOS phones are too expensive. And I don't need all those apps. I just want to make a few calls, use internet from time to time, and perhaps look at a map, or send/read a few messages. That's it. Windows is perfectly fine for that, and the phones are competitively priced.

      I guess there are not many like me.

      • I guess there are not many like me.

        There's lots like you. But they've got all their peers telling them Windows and BlackBerry are the wrong choice, for so many reasons that, right or wrong, are hard to argue for anyone who isn't knowledgeable. We're social animals, most just move with the herd.

        • If you know that you aren't going to want apps, and are happy with making a few calls (odd use for a smartphone, but....), hit the web now and then, use maps, whatever, then a Windows phone will work for you. Similarly, if you want to buy a desktop or laptop and are happy with email, a web browser, light word processing, and a few casual games you'll be better off with Ubuntu or Mint than Windows. Most people aren't that sure of their future desires.

          When Pokemon Go hit, I had to download the app to kee

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @05:50PM (#52728793)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • by Anonymous Coward

    A third-party operating system is nice and all, but what we really need is a third party that primarily has the interests of its users in mind. By now I am convinced any other large corporation cannot be that party. They would just turn into another Apple, Google or Microsoft, quickly morphing their OS into a tool to treat the users as cows to be milked instead of users.

    Unfortunately I do not see anyone else having the deep pockets required to actually make a change, and the public at large is much to letha

  • Blackberry (Score:5, Interesting)

    by maliqua ( 1316471 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @05:54PM (#52728831)

    Well since blackberry has started using android on its new devices its not even slightly surprising that BB OS is losing market share, i'd be more interested to see if blackberry's market share has gone up or down as a device maker since the switch

  • Windows Phone (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fredgiblet ( 1063752 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:08PM (#52728895)
    WP has what it takes, but it got it too late, had too many missteps along the way and lost the mindshare war. So the only way it can make a dent is if one of the others takes a dive.
    • Re:Windows Phone (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:23PM (#52728983) Homepage

      Huge missteps mostly recently. Windows Phone 7 through 8.1 were fantastic -- always smooth as butter, responsive, relatively bug-free, had a great UI, and had fantastic tools for devs. I also own several high-end Android devices and if you could live with less apps I really do think Windows Phone was superior to Android.

      10 was a huge step back -- no longer smooth and incredibly buggy. I got a Lumia 950 to replace my aging 920 and only now a year later with the Anniversary release can I say it is something they should sell, but it's still only comparable to Android levels of smoothness. I really miss the lag-free 8.1 OS.

      • 7 had a huge lack of features and then was totally abandoned. 8 started out feature poor but got better over time. I haven't touched 10. I worked for WP support for a while, but not any longer and since my carrier doesn't support WP I have an Android. I still have my Lumia 520 that I won at work, but it's just for playing the occasional game for achievements.
      • I disagree. I have a Lumia 550, and it's been great, especially now w/ the Anniversary update. In the US, it has a major app shortage, but in other countries, it gets a fairer shake from app makers.
  • I think we should also point out that iOS, Andriod, and Windows Phone also account for 99% of all smartphone sales last quarter.

  • by OpenSourced ( 323149 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:17PM (#52728953) Journal

    12% market share approaches the danger zone. For some applications, perhaps just 5% of your potential public will use iOS. Then you don't develop the iOS version. Market dominance snowballs in this kind of situations, as we regrettably know from the Windows story.

    • by Nemyst ( 1383049 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:32PM (#52729033) Homepage
      Bear in mind that this is sales, not install base. iOS still has a big install base and they seem to be bigger spenders than Android users in terms of apps.
      • I think a more important thing to bear in mind is this is worldwide. Android completely owns Asia and Africa, almost completely based on dirt-cheap Android phones. iOS fares better in the developed world. But, on the other hand, the problem for both iOS and Android in places like the US is churn - people are more willing to go back and forth nowadays because there's just not much of a compelling difference in the eyes of most consumers.

        • My wife's friends are all upper middle class middle aged women, and until a year or so ago they were 100% iPhone users.

          A group of us went out to dinner on Saturday night and only about 4 out of 12 women there still use iPhones. It was so noticeable that my wife even asked me on the way home if she should get an Android phone "like the boys have" for her next phone.

          Hardly a scientific study of course, but it was kind of striking.

        • So whatever happened to that guy on China who sold his kidney for an iphone?
    • by Lost2Home ( 674278 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:38PM (#52729099)
      Actually if you look at the Gartner numbers (broken out by brand), you will see that Android owns the low end market with off brands. If you just compare Samsung vs Apple at the high end, it is about 63% to 37%. So while still a commanding lead, it isn't the overwhelming majority when you consider Apple's target customer base.
      • Wait, are you saying a 2:1 ratio in sales is not a commanding lead? If not - what is?
        • Wait, are you saying a 2:1 ratio in sales is not a commanding lead? If not - what is?

          You are ignoring that less than half of Samsung's sales are high end phones. Far less.

          Or do you actually believe that Samsung would still bring out phones with screens as small as the "too small" iPhone 4 if they didn't sell? Let alone smaller ones (though not running Android).

          • From the GP:

            Samsung vs Apple at the high end, it is about 63% to 37%

            According to the GP, Samsung sells about 2 high end phones to every Apple phone (63% to 37%). Is that not a commanding lead?

    • Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:42PM (#52729123)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by mspohr ( 589790 )

        Apple has been coasting on OSX for too long. All of their hardware is old, overpriced and out of date. The rumors of updates just keep getting more confusing. I think the company is seriously conflicted about the future of OSX and their hardware.
        I personally gave up waiting for new hardware and bought a Chromebook which I found to be surprisingly nimble. It really does everything I need except occasional programming but I have a Linux machine for that.

        • by tgv ( 254536 )

          > It really does everything I need

          I've got a Windows phone. It does everything I need. No, I'm not being sarcastic, it's true. But it turns out that what I like and need doesn't translate to the rest of the population. Most people, perhaps as much as 99%, could get by with a Chromebook.

          But I'm glad people still buy macs, because OSX is a very nice system, and for my music hobby I definitely need all the CPU power and storage space I can get.

      • Apple devices are marketed towards a niche segment that is outside of the commodity (Windows/Android) markets.

        Yes, with devices like the iPhone CE and SE?

        I can guarantee if you made that claim to Apple's board you'd be drawn and quartered. Apple can't continue to grow supplying a niche market. They know that, and it's why they started providing middle-tier options (a few years back now).

    • There is a problem with correlating this market share number (% of sales of new devices) with the market share number developers and such would be interested in (% of active devices in use). Many (not all) android phones are disposable and can be out of date (especially RE os version) before they leave the store. Many iOS devices, on the other hand, remain in use (and running current OS version) for 4 years. THAT creates a large, target-able user base for developers/etc.

    • It can be exactly the opposite too. Just compare global linux desktop market share (about 2%) with linux market share for software developer desktops (about 20%).

      • It can be exactly the opposite too. Just compare global linux desktop market share (about 2%) with linux market share for software developer desktops (about 20%).

        Funny you should mention the Stackoverflow survey, according to that Mac OS X actually gained quite a lot on Linux compared to previous years and is now at 26.2%.

    • I would buy an Ubuntu phone if it didn't use Mir as the display server. This is because Mir means I can't install Java. Aside from that, Ubuntu phone looks awesome.

    • Market dominance snowballs in this kind of situations, as we regrettably know from the Windows story.

      There's a key difference.
      Android's source are available for anyone to use. (Only the Google-branded experience is protected).

      And as a consequence of the above, it's possible to find solutions to run Android apps on other platforms too.
      (Though it helps to have a Linux kernel, as Microsoft failed attemps at Android on Windows Phone (that morphed into WSL) has shown.
      So Android apps on iOS might by a tiny bit more complicated than Android apps on Sailfish OS)

  • I want maemo back! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward

    The spirit of maemo/MeeGo or even ugh Tizen. And not manufacturers bloatware and walled gardens :(

  • Apple below 15%, that's the real news. Well, and Microsoft completely squashed.

    • Apple below 15%, that's the real news.

      Not if you compare it to previous Q3s, then this last was the case 5 years ago - back when whatever-Windows-Phone was called back then had a higher market share than iOS..

      Jesus Christ, are you even trying to do a sane comparison? Or are you going to cheer for Apple when their marketshare goes back up again? I dare you.

      Or at least make the effort to know your enemy instead of just making shit up that sounds good to 3 out of 5 voices in your head.

  • by CrashNBrn ( 1143981 ) on Thursday August 18, 2016 @06:45PM (#52729143)
    According to Statista's chart [statista.com], in 2009 "others" were 82%+. iOS was 10-12% and Android was ~%6. iOS market-share looks like it hasn't changed much at all over the last 7 years.
  • And again Apple is doomed because iPhone 6 sold so well. Lets look at the data from the year before, mkay?

    http://www.gartner.com/newsroo... [gartner.com]

    Q2 2014:
    Android: 243,484k units, 83.8%
    iOS: 35,345k units, 12.2%

    IOW Apple has a higher marketshare Q2 2016 than Q2 2014. Apple is domed!

    If only they had sold 10 million less phones in Q2 2015, there'd be a nice steady growth in marketshare, but no, they had to doom themselves by being so successful last year.

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