iPhone Now Trumps Android Smartphones In U.S.: Researcher

By Tarmo Virki

(Reuters) - Suppliers basked in the reflection of Apple's glowing results on Wednesday after the company's gold standard iPhones and iPads flew off the shelves over the holiday sales season.

Apple's forecast-beating fourth-quarter figures late on Tuesday helped it to beat Google's Android as the largest smartphone platform in the United States and to regain the world's largest smartphone maker spot from Samsung.

Apple's results were spearheaded by sales of the iPhone 4S, which is packed with technology from British chip designer ARM, said analyst Nick James at Numis.

Apple accounts for about 10 percent of ARM's technology revenues, and for about 35 percent of graphics and video chip designer Imagination's technology revenues, he said.

"It means people are still driven by performance in terms of having the highest performance, highest functioning devices, and those tend to have quite a number of ARM-based chips in them."

"It is one of the key things that drove Imagination to come through to the next level," James added.

Shares in ARM jumped 4.2 percent, while shares in Imagination were 4.1 percent higher at 1030 GMT.

Analyst Didier Scemama at RBS said that although Apple was only one of many ARM customers -- the Cambridge-based company supplies virtually every smartphone and tablet with their cheap designs -- from a sentiment standpoint there has been a strong correlation between the two stocks.

"(Apple) should help the whole sector today, but especially Dialog Semiconductor and other suppliers," said a Frankfurt-based trader.

Shares in Dialog Semi were up 3.9 percent.

OVERTAKING SAMSUNG

Samsung became the world's largest smartphone maker in the third quarter, but analysts said the 37 million iPhones sold in the fourth quarter should easily beat Samsung's expected sales of around 30 million.

Samsung is due to report on Friday.

Research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said Apple's share of the U.S. market doubled from a year ago to 44.9 percent in the October to December period, just beating the total for Android smartphones, which slipped to 44.8 percent from 50 percent.

"Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover," said Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at the research firm.

Apple's iPhone 4S also uses chips from Samsung Electronics, Qualcomm, Toshiba and a host of smaller semiconductor companies, including TriQuint, Skyworks Solutions and Avago Technologies Inc.

In stark contrast to Apple's success, sales of handset makers using Android, including Motorola Mobility, HTC and Sony Ericsson, have stumbled in the quarter.

(Reporting By Tarmo Virki, Paul Sandle and Harro ten Wolde; Editing by Will Waterman)

Comments

[Terry Goetz]

06:37 AM on 01/28/2012

had an atrix went back to iphone EASY bought an acer tab cool but not easy works but you need to be a computer dude to run it fully wish it was easier to use

[vicentejr28]

07:09 PM on 01/25/2012

seriously, everyone needs to relax. any phone is anyones preference. However, i have had every model of Iphone, and i WOULD never get another type of phone. The iphone is elegant. The droids are cool. Quick story. I have about 7 employees who have/had droids. Literally ALL of them complain on a daily basis about their phone. Now thats just my example, but i know im not the only one. Apple products for life...oh btw...i dont really care who builds the apple products, because in the end, IM HAPPY.

[Ginger Rough]

06:33 PM on 01/25/2012

I like my iphone 4S. But, I loved my Palm Pre...RIP :(

[Bill Sampson]

06:24 PM on 01/25/2012

WebOS is the best! Shame HP could not compete and had to kill it. That said, nothing tops the refinement of the iPhone, or any Apple product for that matter. The iPhone's hardware and software are the product of a perfectionist and it shows.

[Caitlin Witte]

04:07 PM on 01/25/2012

I hate how Apple, and its fans drive the cult of perceived obsolescence in our society. I realize all technology companies are guilty of tweaking little details to get consumers to part ways with their old models, but Apple and its fanatical crowd of customers who wait in line for days to buy the 4s or iPad 2 while the previous model already sits at home are particularly infuriating. The hype surrounding Apple releases encourages the worst kind of wastefulness. Seriously people, you really need to go out and buy an iPad 2 when you bought the original a year before? The "old" models then become junk cluttering up the planet. I've considered buying a Macbook pro for the magnetic power jack (I always bust mine) but other than that I would never give my money to Apple.

[six seven]

04:41 PM on 01/25/2012

Agreed! F&F!

[elsquibbs]

05:49 PM on 01/26/2012

I'm going to wait outside in a blizzard for 14 hours so I can buy Apples newest product and live-blog about how consumerism is destroying our country.

[littlebigcheese]

03:40 PM on 01/25/2012

Apple employs 43,000 people in the United States and 20,000 overseas, a small fraction of the over 400,000 American workers at General Motors in the 1950s, or the hundreds of thousands at General Electric in the 1980s. Many more people work for Apple’s contractors: an additional 700,000 people engineer, build and assemble iPads, iPhones and Apple’s other products. But almost none of them work in the United States. Instead, they work for foreign companies in Asia, Europe and elsewhere, at factories that almost all electronics designers rely upon to build their wares.

“Apple’s an example of why it’s so hard to create middle-class jobs in the U.S. now,” said Jared Bernstein, who until last year was an economic adviser to the White House.

“If it’s the pinnacle of capitalism, we should be worried.”

source : New York Times, Jan 21, 2012

[littlebigcheese]

03:38 PM on 01/25/2012

Not long ago, Apple boasted that its products were made in America. Today, few are. Almost all of the 70 million iPhones, 30 million iPads and 59 million other products Apple sold last year were manufactured overseas.

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

source: New York Times, Jan. 21, 2012

[Lovelyblue]

03:01 PM on 01/25/2012

I work in the field part time usually through the holidays when my local carrier store needs help. Through my experience playing with all the phones I never have had issues with the Apple phones. I have sold many of them. I also have sold Android phones. Statically in my store the Android phones are the most returned phones and are the ones that seems to carry the most issues in the smart phone field. It is a personal choice some like apple some like the Android. I've never steered anyone away from either or. Take the time to research and play with the phone before making a decision, see how it fits into your life style and what you are looking in a phone. Remember ultimately it is a phone.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

03:25 PM on 01/25/2012

I've learned to never trust anything a fanboy writes. Apparently, they all have Windows 7 computers (seems weird for people who wouldn't touch anything non-Apple with a ten-foot pole, doesn't it?) that go BSOD and crash_all the time. No doubt you too have had that experience...

[RobietheCat]

03:55 PM on 01/25/2012

Actually, I use Win7, and while not my favorite, I have never had a BSOD.

That would be a mis-configuration issue, and like a car that stalls, needs to be fixed.

[nativetexan57]

02:50 PM on 01/25/2012

Siri is amazing. The iPhone 4s rocks. I have a coworker that is NOT an apple fan. He claims that everything that siri does has been out for years... "nothing new there....my phone can do that...there is an ap for that...yeah, thats been around for years...just apple stealing someone else's work again."
Funny, he never shows me his phone doing all the things that siri does.

[WestCactus]

02:10 PM on 01/25/2012

Another inflated "Apple smashes Android in the Face and Makes it Cry!" story, another excuse to get people fired up against one another, over THEIR CHOICE OF PHONES!?!?

People, they're consumer electronics, not morals, not behavior, not anything that matters. Pick the one you like and move on.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

02:05 PM on 01/25/2012

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has conceded that Android phones have leaped ahead of the iPhone. Speaking in an interview with The Daily Beast, Steve admits that he looks at some of the features in Android and wishes his iPhone would work in the same manner.

Do I hear the noise of Apple fanboys heads expIoding? :)

[StinkyPete0279]

02:33 PM on 01/25/2012

Aaah good ol Woz. Definitely more interesting and far more worthy of a personality cult than Jobs ever was.

[RobietheCat]

03:57 PM on 01/25/2012

Honesty is never a requirement for a cult.

Blind belief is. I've always liked Woz.

[zdubchi]

02:43 PM on 01/25/2012

Does that make you an Android fangirl?

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

03:23 PM on 01/25/2012

Nope. I'm ready to switch to any other OS, if I find it better. Unlike Apple fanboys...

[MichaelMcKLA]

01:47 PM on 01/25/2012

iLove my iPhone 4S. :)

[Lovelyblue]

02:34 PM on 01/25/2012

Me too SIRI is my new best friend!

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

03:33 PM on 01/25/2012

You don't realize how sad is what you've just said...

[six seven]

03:46 PM on 01/25/2012

#smokedbywindowsphone

[PermanentVacancy]

01:46 PM on 01/25/2012

Our household seems to be almost evenly divided between iphones and androids with androids ahead by one phone currently.

[bart12]

01:46 PM on 01/25/2012

People need to wake up why we have 1% vs 99%.. Apple uses its slick marketing to hook the masses and enrich themselves many times over.
Apple’s overhyped me-tooPhone. It’s still 3G, has no MicroSD slot, no replaceable battery, no 4G hotspot, no video calling over the network, no widgets, no Swype keyboard, no hard keyboard, no choices, and it continues to be on the heels of Android in terms of every other “innovation” it claims to bring to market. Voice recognition? Big deal. The very first Android phone had voice recognition. I use mine regularly to tell my phone to find and navigate to new locations on-the-fly while I’m driving. Oh, wait. I guess the iPhone wouldn’t need to do that, since it doesn’t do turn-by-turn navigation like Google Navigator does. My G2 is still more capable than the iPhone 4S in terms of functionality, and I wouldn’t trade it for two iPhone 4S’s

[Dan Pierce]

02:05 PM on 01/25/2012

Marketing only carries you so far. You still need a good product.

From what I have seen, 4G is great as long as you can keep your phone near a charger during the day.

It's never had a MicroSD slot or a replaceable battery. For the vast majority of people that's not a concern.

You can do a wireless hotspot and have been able to for years. Only the carriers restrict their use.

You can do video calling over the cell network using Skype.

Yeah, widgets would be nice.

Eh, the keyboard works for me but I'm not much of a typist anyway.

Well, Siri is more than just voice dictation. It also is able to process and return results without you having to be restricted to just a few keywords.

The MapQuest mobile map does pretty good turn by turn navigation.

All in all, I have pretty happy with my experience.

[ingua2]

03:00 PM on 01/25/2012

never have to keep mine near a charger for my rezound. wife doesn't have to do that with her tbolt. Our friends don't have to do that with their Samsung phones.

Siri is ok, when it works. Outside of that it's just a parlor trick. Apple thought they could buy a company to fill a gap but released it as a beta. Google has had voice rec/command control in android for quite a while. Their next step is to integrate it and make it more natural than what Siri is. It's better when you have a plan. Apple didn't. They just needed a marketing gimmick to sell the 4S, which is the only reason why Siri isn't officially ported to other ios5 devices. True story bro.

Mapquest is a joke. Google Maps/Nav, the only way to go. Integrated throughout your android experience, including gmail and gCalendar.

Usually people with their phones are happy with their experience or else they'd return them. A non-point, really.

[ProudToBeVeryLiberal]

03:34 PM on 01/25/2012

"Marketing only carries you so far. You still need a good product."

Not for the iCrowd. They would buy a $50 iBrick in a millisecond...

[Mystigo]

02:05 PM on 01/25/2012

What? What does your fan-boism have to do with the 1% vs the 99%? You don't like Apple, we get it. Apple is not Koch industries though. They are not raping the planet. They are making technology that is empowering humanity in fundamental ways. And they are doing so in admirable fashion -even Greenpeace begrudgingly admits that they are not despoilers or exploiters. But, but "what about Android" you scream? It's fine if you want Google tracking your existence to 10 decimal places.

[ingua2]

03:01 PM on 01/25/2012

How are they "empowering humanity in fundamental ways"? Seriously, that's a stretch for a company that sells flashy gear to teens.

[bring in swat]

03:45 PM on 01/25/2012

yawn...apple is definitively the Koch's of tech. more slave profit than any other. the hooked-on-phonics of OS's...get over the "i", apple has become the lemmings the 1984 commercial shunned.

[sumogirl]

01:35 PM on 01/25/2012

I found it interesting that Steve Jobs' wife, Laurene, was at Obama's State of the Union address last night. Even the President and his re-election team understand the value of having a connection to Jobs. Jobs believed Obama was on the path to being a one-term President, and offered to help him with his re-election campaign. I would have loved to see what Jobs would have done had he lived and had Obama taken him up on the offer...

[mjredder]

01:41 PM on 01/25/2012

No you wouldn't. Your taxes would be higher, billionaires (like Jobs) would be paying no taxes, and the exporting of American jobs that Jobs participated in would be accelerated, so you'd likely be out of work too. (Jobs pushed Obama to lower the tax rate on foreign profits, which means that huge corporations would have one of the few remaining barriers to outsourcing finally removed, making it even more cost effective to stop hiring Americans.) Jobs was a 1%er, plain and simple.

[delsueno]

02:57 PM on 01/25/2012

Well put.The rampant desire to canonize Jobs as some kind of nurturing everyman gets under my skin. Can't blame people - Apple's ability to mold people's opinions is nothing short of phenomenal. I'm just glad other cults don't have Apple's marketing department :-)

[sumogirl]

03:07 PM on 01/25/2012

You know, mjredder, I needed to be reminded about all that including that Jobs really was a 1%er. But, I still would have liked to see what he would do to help Obama's campaign. My thinking upon first hearing about Jobs' offer was that perhaps Jobs was evolving in a positive way and maybe even do some good.

[ingua2]

03:03 PM on 01/25/2012

Jobs was selfish. He never gave to charity or cancer research. He never donated money to the hospital where he jumped the line to get a transplant with the doctors knowing that typically a person in his condition is not approved for a transplant over others. He was never into politics. He was just into spinning ideas his engineers, designers and developers came up as his own. He was the best used car salesman in the world. That is all.