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Apple's share of U.S. smartphone market grows to 25% - study

*LTD*

*LTD*

macrumors G4
Original poster
Feb 5, 2009
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http://www.appleinsider.com/article..._u_s_smartphone_market_grows_to_25_study.html

http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Pr...mber_2009_U.S._Mobile_Subscriber_Market_Share

Apple's share of U.S. smartphone market grows to 25% - study

By Slash Lane
Published: 07:55 AM EST

A strong holiday quarter helped to grow Apple's share of the U.S. smartphone market by 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, giving the iPhone a 25.3 percent share of users, according to a new report.

ComScore this week released its Mobile Subscriber Market Share findings for the three-month frame ending in December 2009. While competitors Research in Motion, Microsoft and Palm all lost ground in the domestic market, Apple further solidified its place as the No. 2 smartphone maker in the U.S.

In first was RIM, which had 41.6 percent of the holiday share. That was down 1 percent from the September quarter. Microsoft took third, also losing 1 percent from September, to 18 percent.

In fourth was Palm, dropping 2.2 percent to 6.1 percent in the December quarter. Google surged into fifth with a 5.2 percent share, up 2.7 percentage points from September 2009.

In all, there were 234 million people aged 13 and older in the U.S. using mobile devices in December 2009. Motorola was the top overall cell phone maker, with 23.5 percent of all U.S. mobile devices. As the smartphone market is much smaller than the overall cell phone market, Apple did not rank among the top five.

The top smartphone maker RIM came in fifth place -- behind LG, Samsung and Nokia -- with a 7 percent market share. While the BlackBerry maker lost ground in the smartphone market, it gained in the overall cell phone market, boosting its presence by 0.6 percent and closing the gap with fourth-place Nokia, which dropped 0.4 percent to 9.2 percentage points.


comscore100209.png




The study also found that most mobile phone users -- 63.1 percent -- use their handset to send text messages. In addition, 27.5 percent use a Web browser, 21.6 percent play games, 17.8 percent download applications, and 12.1 percent listen to music.

With more than 140,000 applications available on its App Store, Apple has by far the largest central online marketplace for software in the smartphone space.

While comScore's data is in terms of actual owned units in the U.S., last week IDC released a study on global smartphone sales, which found that Apple represented 14.4 percent of worldwide shipments. Apple shipped an estimated 25.1 million iPhones in all of 2009, and a record 8.7 million in the fourth quarter alone.
 
I love headlines. You can make up so many true ones from the same data:

A strong holiday quarter helped to grow Apple's share of the U.S. smartphone market by 1.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009.. (Note: while Google more than doubles from 2.5% to 5.2% of the market)
Click to expand...
Google's share of the U.S. smartphone market grows by over 100%, while Apple barely has single digit growth!

... giving the iPhone a 25.3 percent share of users
Click to expand...
Almost 3/4 of smartphone users in the U.S. chose a device other than the iPhone !

While competitors Research in Motion, Microsoft and Palm all lost ground in the domestic market, Apple further solidified its place as the No. 2 smartphone maker in the U.S.
Click to expand...
Windows Mobile solidified its place as the No. 3 type of smartphone in the U.S !

In first was RIM, which had 41.6 percent of the holiday share.
Click to expand...
RIM continues to dominate the U.S. market !

Motorola was the top overall cell phone maker, with 23.5 percent of all U.S. mobile devices.
Click to expand...
No, wait! Motorola continues to dominate U.S. market !

As the smartphone market is much smaller than the overall cell phone market, Apple did not rank among the top five.
Click to expand...
Apple still just a tiny blip in the phone market !

:)
 
kdarling said:
I love headlines. You can make up so many true ones from the same data:


Google's share of the U.S. smartphone market grows by over 100%, while Apple barely has single digit growth!


Almost 3/4 of smartphone users in the U.S. chose a device other than the iPhone !


Windows Mobile solidified its place as the No. 3 type of smartphone in the U.S !


RIM continues to dominate the U.S. market !


No, wait! Motorola continues to dominate U.S. market !


Apple still just a tiny blip in the phone market !

:)
Click to expand...


*LTD* PWNED AGAIN :D
 
Reminds me of one of may favorite quotes...

figures won't lie, but liars can figure
 
Can some one find the year to year growth for the iPhone in the US.

I expect the iPhone to bleed market-share in Q1 and Q2 this year due to getting close to the end of its upgrade cycle and the fact that Palm Pre/Pixel, and android phones getting out on more carriers.

I except the RIM to sit around the same market share (might gain a little) but RIM has sat were it is for a while in the smart phone market but it is at the saturation point.

The iPhone I feel is more or less not going to gain much more market-share as it is at its saturation point on AT&T. Now the only way it will gain any real market share is if it goes to other carriers. Other wise it will hover around were it is now.
 
Reminds me of the old saw about a car show. Two cars were entered, an American one and a Russian one. The American car was judged to be the better of the two. The next morning, the lead article in Pravda read: "Russian car finishes second in competition; American car finishes next to last!"
 
Rodimus Prime said:
Can some one find the year to year growth for the iPhone in the US.
Click to expand...

Since I always try to post using facts, I've spent time compiling sales info from ATT and Apple reports. I haven't seen this elsewhere. You can use it to create charts. Enjoy.

Code: 
        Millions
Cal   World    USA    %ATT
====    ===    ===    ===
2Q07    0.3    0.3    100
3Q07    1.1    1.1    100
4Q07    2.3    2.0     87

1Q08    1.7    1.3     76
2Q08    0.7    0.5     71    
3Q08    6.9    2.4     34        3G july
4Q08    4.4    1.9     43

1Q09    3.8    1.6     42
2Q09    5.2    2.4     46        3GS june
3Q09    7.0    3.2     45
4Q09    8.7    3.1     36
=========================
TOTAL  42.1   19.8     47%

Note that those are Calendar quarters, not Apple quarters. The first column is Total World Sales, then the number out of that for ATT, then the percentage of ATT to world sales.

Note that 4Q09 numbers have not been corrected for the ~230K phones that were only "sold" to the inventory channel. For 4Q09, ATT also did not provide actual sales numbers, but all iPhones "activated", so an unknown number of hand-me-downs and other non-sales are included.

4Q09 avoided the usual slump due to China and Japan sales, I think.
 
Awesome reply, kdarling. A lot of bloggers are good at twisting facts for their own views, especially when it comes to "growth." Android obviously has nowhere to go but up, just as Apple did a couple of years ago. I also remember that as Apple has sold a ton of iPhones and cut into market share, RIM sold more phones than before. So basically Apple came onto the scene with good sales, but then RIM had better sales as well. It seems that Android might do the same, but to a much smaller extent than Apple.

Financial stories are full of crap like this. "Company X sales drop to only $100 billion in first quarter." Yes, because $100 billion in sales is a horrible number.
 
thelatinist said:
I wonder what portion of the 27.5% who use their smartphone's web browser Apple accounts for. I'm guessing about 92%.
Click to expand...

According to AdMob last November, the iPhone OS accounted for 55% of USA web traffic, Android for 20%, RIM for 12%, webOS for 5%.

Six months previous to that, I think it was Apple 50% and Android 5%.

(It's not always clear with AdMob if they include the iPod touch with the iPhone OS requests. Sometimes they do, sometimes not.)
 
kdarling said:
I love headlines.
Apple still just a tiny blip in the phone market !

:)
Click to expand...

You are right, these headlines can be interpreted in a hundred ways. But I am always confused by the value people place on market share data. It is not particularly significant. At best, market-share is a weak proxy for profitability.

But why look at a proxy when you can look at the actual numbers?

When you do look at actual profitability it shows something bizarre and unprecedented. Somewhere in the course of 2009, Apple ended-up becoming the single most profitable handset manufacturer in the world.

Which for a tiny blip, is quite impressive.

How did the other manufacturers let that happen?

C.
 
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