Android Beats iPhone As Most Popular Operating System Among Recent Buyers: Nielsen

According to new figures from Nielsen, Google's Android operating system is now the most popular OS among U.S. buyers who purchased a smartphone in the last 6 months.

Android sales soared between January and August as consumers snatched up the many and varied devices built around Google's mobile platform. "Android was the top platform in the U.S. with 32 percent of new purchases, followed by the iPhone and Research In Motion's Blackberry platform, tied at about 25 percent," writes Gigaom, reporting Nielsen's research.

As the graph below shows, Android devices outsold both the iPhone and RIM's Blackberry devices between July and August. However, it should be noted that Nielsen's data included only a month when Apple's new iPhone 4 was available.

Gigaom also points out that July figures from NPD and ComScore match Nielsen's data:

During the second quarter NPD reported that Android phones represented 33 percent of new smartphone purchases, compared to 28 percent for BlackBerry and 22 percent for Apple's iPhone. ComScore said that RIM's overall market share remained at 39.3 percent in July, ahead of iPhone (23.8 percent) and Android (18 percent).

In addition, says Read Write Web, "among all smartphone owners, RIM is still number one here in the U.S., but Nielsen notes its lead over the Apple iPhone (#2) is now declining. In this group, RIM has 31% market share, Apple has 28% and Android has just 19%."

The graphs below shows the operating system share among recent acquirers and U.S. smartphone marketshare. (via Nielsen)

Comments

[shearm]

09:19 PM on 10/07/2010

I prefer Android over iOS but the numbers are a bit skewed. For one, Android is open source, so it's made cheaper and on more phones. It also goes across cell companies. Therefore, it's on more phones, some of which are much cheaper, so it was bound to eventually outsell iOS.

It's the same argument I make when Apple makes the claim that their computers are tops in customer satisfaction. In this case, when you have much less users than the competition, it's much easier to have better satisfaction rating.

[rezna]

07:12 PM on 10/07/2010

Here's what it comes down to

Android users think they're more technologically saavy, have more skills with computers, and probably were always nothing but PC users. They will also bash on anyone with an iPhone, whether they're a fanboy or not.
iPhone users are either hardcore Apple fans and fanboys, or regular people with PCs who know their stuff, but would rather have a high quality piece of equipment than an open source and vulnerable handset with poor support instead.

I'm so tired of hearing Android users calling iPhone users a bunch of idiots with no computer savvy at all. I'm extremely computer savvy, just built a brand new PC for my sister with Win7, all from bare bones parts, and it worked the first try absolutely no problems (except one bad stick of RAM.) We both have iPhones and love them.

[MrDOB]

05:34 PM on 10/07/2010

Burp! Who cares?

[SwingingFromCenter]

02:08 PM on 10/07/2010

The sky is blue!

Oh, I'm sorry, I thought by the headline on the tech page that this was "state the obvious" day

[benji85]

08:14 AM on 10/07/2010

Apples and oranges, this was studied based on operating systems and not an actual phone.

[StevieRae]

08:28 AM on 10/07/2010

thank you for putting this headline into perspective. My guess is some "headline readers" may run out and buy the phone without understanding what was surveyed!

[Ratnok]

09:10 AM on 10/07/2010

This argument is getting tired and boring. It's the same argument that fanboys used to rationalize Apple's 7% share of the PC market. Windows vs. Mac. It was a failed argument then and a failed argument now. The fact that Apple has a poor distribution strategy in comparison to everyone else (Google, RIM, Nokia, even Palm) is their own fault.

[benji85]

06:09 PM on 10/07/2010

Why does every company have to dominate a market, why can't they just carve out a niche part that they want to be in and be good at that?

[John Rennhack]

07:39 AM on 10/07/2010

By all the comments, I'm guessing android users are pretty insecure about their phone choices. Same thing went for the Windows users. The need to bash Apple is astounding.

[Ratnok]

09:05 AM on 10/07/2010

Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?

[John Rennhack]

12:15 PM on 10/07/2010

How so?
Saying the numbers represented here are skewed isn't being insecure, it's being truthful.

[SwingingFromCenter]

02:08 PM on 10/07/2010

Windows and Android users aren't insecure.  We're tired of Luddites like you Applebots claiming that you're somehow tech savvy because you have a toy with training wheels.

[John Rennhack]

02:26 PM on 10/07/2010

"Luddites"?
Let's go through some history of technology....
Apple adapts Mouse interface.... rest of world holds out for awhile then follows. "Who needs a mouse!" was the refrain
Apple ditches floppy drives and opts for optical drives.... rest of world scoffs... and soon follows. "We need limited capacity floppies!" said PC users
Apple adapts USB and Firewire.... more scoffing and then following

Apple is on the forefront of new tech... not what a Luddite would be.
And how "tech savvy" are you?
And most end users don't want to be "tech savvy," they want their computers to work and work well.
And the old "toy" argument. I used to hear that back in the day when pc users grumbled about not having "plug and play". Like somehow a computer that works right out of the box is a bad thing.

[jalaroc]

03:59 AM on 10/07/2010

Apple could have sold so many more I-phones if they didn't bundle it with AT&T, the stupidest move ever.

[politisophical]

02:22 AM on 10/07/2010

app of the week for me.. .the DROID 48 app.. its the hp-48 calculator on my EVO!!!!! wicked cool!!! if you are an engineer you will know what im talking about..

after all - you never know when an engineering emergency is going to pop up..lol

[JasonMcl]

06:17 AM on 10/07/2010

Like building a pumpkin catapult for Halloween?

[SwingingFromCenter]

02:11 PM on 10/07/2010

Hey, I built a trebuchet for Halloween 2 years ago.

Got together with my neighbour across the street, and we each got about 200 pumpkins of varying sizes.  Put spears and mini bows and what have you on their sides, carved em out with fierce faces, built a couple of trebuchets, etc. and positioned them so the ones in my yard were facing his, and the ones in his yard were facing mine. 

Pointless?  Absolutely.  But we brought smiles to a lot of faces that year.

Sadly, the trebuchets I built wouldn't lob a pumpkin across the street.  So the app would have been perfect.

[Morgantheaxe]

12:39 AM on 10/07/2010

Grats to Google. Android is a great product. Complete fail by the author. Which specific phone outsold the Iphone? None. The more than a dozen different phones by three or four different companys combined outsold the Iphone. This is just a stupid as comparing windows to mac. Which system running windows outsells mac? Combine em all and Mac looks like a fraction of the market. Compare Mac to each individual manufacturer loading that fat bloated OS windows and all the sudden Mac is comparable in sales. Didnt bother to read who wrote this....but its a complete fail.

[alterego55]

01:18 AM on 10/07/2010

Who chose to make iOS exclusively available - Apple (Jobs)?. Who chose to make Mac exclusively available - Apple (Jobs)? Who choses to keep Apple (Jobs) a second rate company- Jobs.

[krol]

01:35 AM on 10/07/2010

I wouldn't agree that Apple is a second-rate company - it's products are definitely high quality. But your point is completely right aside from that.

@Morgantheaxe, you're complaining that the one platform is open and adaptable whereas the other is not. That's a decision Apple made to achieve its goals, but as far as gaining market share, you can't deny that the open approach is better. Apple products are great, but they have rarely embraced openness, and this is true on many levels (playing 'app-king' and determining that some apps are inappropriate while other, similar apps that just so happen to have been made by big companies get through). Generally I go for the more open products. I don't want Steve Jobs determining what I should look at.

[Peter Phan]

01:48 AM on 10/07/2010

The problem, for Apple, is that they are going to repeat the Mac vs Windows scenario, but this time it's iOS vs Android. Like Windows, Android will overwhelm iOS because it will be on so many devices from so many different vendors.

[alterego55]

02:49 AM on 10/08/2010

Developers are leaving iOS like fleas off a wet dog because it is far easier to publish apps on Android.

[Newsmonger]

10:42 PM on 10/06/2010

This is flawed comparison, the sales for GM vehicles is higher than the sales for Lexus ES 350.

We know that GM manufacture many types of vehicles and the aggregate sales of all those vehicles combined might be higher than the sale of Lexus ES 350 a particular specific brand.

Many phone brands and vendors and companies uses the Android OS but on the other hand iPhone is from a single vendor and a single company.

The best comparison is to compare a specific android phone or brand with a specific iPhone.

[Ratnok]

11:01 PM on 10/06/2010

This comparison is just as valid as Windows vs. Mac. And will have the same result.

[Chris Dotson]

10:16 PM on 10/06/2010

Rock on Android!

[Brigitte Bard]

09:54 PM on 10/06/2010

Regardless of the graphs, nothing yet has truly surpassed the technology of the iPhone... Its pretty easy to see why more Androids were sold than iPhones... The Droid being a very good iPhone knock-off, is easier to obtain because it's available through multiple carriers and is the reason why there are so many out there. iPhone is still only being sold through ATT. A regular iPhone user would feel the weakness of a Droid in a heart beat... once again it comes down to PC platform vs Apple's OS. There are far more PC users in this country than Apple users. The Droid speaks to that majority of people but it doesn't change the fact that the iPhone has the edge and because of that has brought many people from the PC world over to Apple. The Android is a PC trying to be an iPhone... Just like Microsoft's operating systems attempt to be like Mac's OS, the Droid is a wanna be (sorry, but it's true...) The fact that Apple introduced the iPhone technology & had the vision, and the Android was created to compete with it says a lot about Apple and the iPhone.

[Ratnok]

09:58 PM on 10/06/2010

Wow. You really don't know much about Android. Will the iPhone give you wifi hotspot capabilities? How about a physical keyboard? Will it increase the size of your screen? How about allow you to use the phone on Verizon or Sprint? Will it give you expandable memory? Or how about let you replace the battery? Will it give you free turn-by-turn navigation? Or how about give you 4G data speeds? Will it let you do Facetime calls to webcam users on 3G? If so, you are just scratching the surface of Android.

[SmartLib247]

03:42 AM on 10/07/2010

Why wonder when the android already tethers for free. Funny story my old school Sanyo, which was the first Sanyo picture phone from 2002 used to tether to my laptop via USB cord. decently fast back in the day because nobody else was using data. Go figure.

[MissAustenRegrets]

10:07 PM on 10/06/2010

Where are you getting this idea that the Androis OS is based on Microsoft or PCs... it is an operating system created by Google and it is based on Linux. Your comments seem to be based more on the aesthetics or emotional appeal of your iPhone.

[tendertapper]

09:06 PM on 10/06/2010

Android is not a smartphone brand. It is a FREE smartphone operating system (OS), like Windows Phone 7 or Symbian. Samsung, HTC, SHarp, etc are smartphone brands.

Neither of these brands outsell the iPhone. HTC has released this year alone: Evo, Nexus 1, Droid Incredible, Aria, Desire and there are more. All of these models combined did not outsell iPhone.

Android OS is more akin to Windows Phone 7, CE etc. One OS on many different manufacturer phones.

[Ratnok]

10:00 PM on 10/06/2010

This is the same logic and rationalization that keeps Macs at less than 10% of the PC market. All you are doing is saying that Apple has a poor distribution strategy and is it's own worse enemy.

[benji85]

08:17 AM on 10/07/2010

But they are still a very profitable company.

[DawnLI]

11:37 PM on 10/06/2010

Android is freeware. Windows 7 is NOT freeware and is not free. And if you want to talk brand, Motorola is at the top of the Android market with it's DROID phones. It's nice not dealing with a company that is living in a proprietary world.

[LCLA]

12:09 AM on 10/07/2010

What company is not living in a proprietary world?

[Sizzzle]

08:39 PM on 10/06/2010

Apple has one phone, Android has dozens. When you look at it that way Android doesn't seem so impressive.

[Ratnok]

10:02 PM on 10/06/2010

All you need to be impressed by are the sales numbers. Android came out of nowhere and is devouring everything in sight. Locally AND globally.

[Newsmonger]

10:53 PM on 10/06/2010

Android is an OS, it is not a smartphone brand, iPhone is a specific smartphone brand and Android is not......

A better comparison should be HTC Aria or HTC Eris vs iPhone 2 or 3 or 4.

or you can compare all the HTC phones having Android OS with all iPhones

[benji85]

08:20 AM on 10/07/2010

Android did not come of nowhere, remember Google experimented with a cell phone platform with T-Mobile's G1, plus it's a Google product so it has automatic name recognition.

[oograh]

11:12 PM on 10/06/2010

Ok, if it makes you guys happy. Android OS outsold iOS. Happy now? I mean Apple makes one Operating system, Google makes one operating system.

[talos72]

08:28 PM on 10/06/2010

Well let's give Apple the credit. They really did a good job of product design. Now, Apple did it's little dance in the phone business. It's time to for toys to step aside for real products like the Android.

I'm ready for the Apple shaped arrows flying at me now!

[mlambush]

09:26 PM on 10/06/2010

Not at all. Fanned.