Android Tops 50% Share of Smartphone Sales, But Apple Still Dominating Profits

Tuesday November 15, 2011 6:44 am PST by Eric Slivka
Research firm Gartner today released its results of worldwide mobile phone sales for the third quarter of 2011, once again revealing how delayed purchases ahead of the iPhone 4S resulted in a dip in unit sales and market share for Apple. According to the report, Apple's share of the total mobile phone market came in at 3.9% for the quarter, down from 4.6% in the previous quarter. The performance was strong enough, however, to maintain fourth place in the rankings behind Nokia, Samsung, and LG.
Apple shipped 17 million iPhones, an annual increase of 21 percent, but down nearly 3 million units from the second quarter of 2011 because of Apple's new device announcement in October. Gartner believes Apple will bounce back in the fourth quarter because of its strongest ever preorders for the iPhone 4S in the first weekend after its announcement. Markets such as Brazil, Mexico, Russia and China are becoming more important to Apple, representing 16 percent of overall sales and showing that the iPhone has a place in emerging markets, especially now that the 3GS and 4 have received price cuts.
Looking at the narrower smartphone market, which represented 26% of mobile phone sales during the quarter, iOS slipped from an 18.2% share in the second quarter to 15.0% in the third quarter, trailing market leader Android and Nokia's soon-to-be-defunct Symbian platforms. Notably, Android leapt to grab 52.5% of the smartphone market during the quarter, more than doubling year-over-year and up significantly from 43.4% just last quarter.


But even as Android surges to take more than half of the worldwide smartphone market by units, Apple continues to increase its share of mobile phone industry profits, with several studies showing that Apple currently takes in more than half of the industry's profits.


In another stark example of Apple's rise to dominance in profit share, Fortune yesterday published several charts from a new report from analysts at Oppenheimer & Co. The graphs show that while Apple's share of smartphone unit sales has somewhat stagnated over the past couple of years, its share of smartphone profits has soared to an estimated 65% during 2011. That trend is predicted to continue in 2012, with Apple pushing toward 70% profit share.

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DMVillain
107 months ago
In 2007 Steve Jobs said he was after only 1% marketshare. Obviously, marketshare is not what they are chasing.
Rating: 17 Votes
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iekozz
107 months ago

Those marketshare reports always fail to include the iPod and the iPad, which are all part of the iOS ecosystem. If they actually included ALL iOS devices in those studies, the TRUTH would be revealed: that Apple completely dominates & decimates their competition.

The iPod and the iPad are not a phone. Only the iPhone is. Can you make calls with a iPod or iPad via a celluar network? Thought so.


Android is an excellent platform? We must have very different definitions of the word "Excellent".

Here we go again. Yes, some people prefer Android and some iOS en some others WP7. It's called personal prefference. Bassicly it is letting them pick the tool that they want to use to acomplish the same thing.

Both iOS,Android and WP7 are very good, and they both have their positive and negative sides. Who are you to judge someone just because they use a different platform...
Rating: 15 Votes
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ghostface147
107 months ago

Those marketshare reports always fail to include the iPod and the iPad, which are all part of the iOS ecosystem. If they actually included ALL iOS devices in those studies, the TRUTH would be revealed: that Apple completely dominates & decimates their competition.


Why include them? This is only about phones and based on that, Android marketshare can't be touched.
Rating: 13 Votes
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Oletros
107 months ago

Those marketshare reports always fail to include the iPod and the iPad, which are all part of the iOS ecosystem. If they actually included ALL iOS devices in those studies, the TRUTH would be revealed: that Apple completely dominates & decimates their competition.


Yap, because the iPod touch is a very good smartphone, isn't?

Android is an excellent platform? We must have very different definitions of the word "Excellent".

Well, you also have a definition for smartphone or phone that includes iPod Touch and ipad, so yes, perhaps your definition of excellent may be also wrong
Rating: 13 Votes
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Zunjine
107 months ago

You do realize that the internal components of an Apple computer is the same as you'd find in any other computer, right? The hard disc, RAM, graphic cards etc are all bulk standard ( In fact, graphic cards found in Apple PCs are often inferior to their Windows PC counter parts )



The internal components of Megan Fox are the same as those of any other woman.
Rating: 12 Votes
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Sangdushi
107 months ago

This saddest part of all this is I remember a time, not too long ago, when you were considered cool having iPhones, and MacBook Pros, etc......now everyone has one.....


you wanna be the only cool kid with the shiny toy so everybody likes you?

lmao
Rating: 10 Votes
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rmwebs
107 months ago
Nice stats.

Hopefully now that Android 4.0 source is out, we'll see some true competition, resulting in Apple being put in a position where they have to go on the defensive and up their game (not that its not already 'upped') to new levels.

Competition is the only way to ensure both iOS and Android will remain the excellent platforms that they currently are.
Rating: 10 Votes
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samcraig
107 months ago

Those marketshare reports always fail to include the iPod and the iPad, which are all part of the iOS ecosystem. If they actually included ALL iOS devices in those studies, the TRUTH would be revealed: that Apple completely dominates & decimates their competition.


Maybe because the stats are about smartphones as per the chart and not based on operating system. Note it's SAMSUNG not Android/Windows.

So what "truth" are you looking for. In sales, others are dominant. In profits, Apple does.
Rating: 9 Votes
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spazzcat
107 months ago

You do realize that the internal components of an Apple computer is the same as you'd find in any other computer, right? The hard disc, RAM, graphic cards etc are all bulk standard ( In fact, graphic cards found in Apple PCs are often inferior to their Windows PC counter parts )


I used to work for an OEM. There are top self components and there are bottom shelf components... Most cheap computers are just that, cheap...
Rating: 8 Votes
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Stella
107 months ago
Oh dear, another lame pissing contest over iOS vs Android...

People buy what they need. If people prefer Android phones they'll buy an Android phone. OTOH, if people want an Apple device they'll go for an iPhone. Or whatever device / manufacturer they like, be it Nokia, HTC, SonyEricsson^H^H^H^H^H^H, I mean Sony!

The two OSes are damned good at what they set out to be - a smartphone OS. All have their strengths, and their weaknesses.
Rating: 8 Votes

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