IDC

IDC: Android owns 75% of smartphone shipments

Ed Sutherland ∙ November 2, 2012

We've long known smartphone owners live in a largely bifurcated world of Android and iOS. However, new research paints a dramatic picture where three out of every four smartphones shipped are powered by Google's mobile operating system. Apple's mobile OS is the only other to have double-digit market share: a hair under 15 percent.

In the third quarter of 2012, Android accounted for 136 million of the 181 million smartphones shipped, according to IDC. By comparison, 26 million iOS-powered smartphones shipped during the same period, giving Apple 14.9 percent of the market. While both OS makers grew faster than the industry's 46.4 percent, Android's 91.5 percent year-over-year growth handily overcame the 57.3 percent growth of Apple's iOS...

Samsung’s smartphone market twice that of Apple

Ed Sutherland ∙ October 26, 2012

Samsung has become Apple's chief nemesis in court and on retail shelves. The South Korean smartphone maker now has twice the market share as the Cupertino, California-based iPhone maker, new research finds. According to IDC, Samsung controlled 31.3 percent of the smartphone market during the third quarter, handily beating Apple's 15 percent share.

The two companies have the smartphone market largely to themselves, with their nearest competitor - Blackberry maker Research In Motion - controlling only 4.3 percent, according to IDC. Nokia even fell from the top five, shipping just 82.9 million handsets in the previous quarter, a 22 percent drop from the same quarter in 2011...

iOS and Android claimed 85% of smartphones in Q2

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2017

Research firm IDC today posted the findings of its smartphone market survey for the second quarter of 2012. Apple and Google continue to dominate the smartphone space, with iOS and Android devices accounting for an astounding 85 percent of all smartphones shipped during the quarter. In other words, more than eight out of ten smartphones in Q2 2012 were either iPhones or Android devices.

The Android freight train just keeps chugging along, posting a remarkable 106.5 percent year-over-year growth versus a 27.5 percent unit growth for the iPhone. Though Android is still winning in terms of sheer number of units, Apple leads the space in profitability.

According to Raymond James, Apple captured about 43 percent of the industry’s revenue in Q2 2012 and 77 percent of operating profits...

iPad slaughters competition, gains share in Q2

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 2, 2012

The iPad is increasingly looking like a big success story for Apple though investors have been largely ignoring the fact due to their fixation with the iPhone, which fell three million units short of predictions in Q2 2012.

During the June quarter, Apple sold 17 million iPads, an 84 percent increase over the 9.25 million iPads sold in the year-ago quarter and up from the 11.8 million iPads shipped in Q1 2012. In just twelve months, Apple increased its share by almost seven percentage points, from 61.5 percent in Q2 2011 to a whopping 68.2 percent in Q2 2012.

Samsung and Asus also gained, the former on the heels of its Galaxy Tab lineup that Apple thinks copies the iPad's look and feel, and the latter based on strong sales of own products and the Nexus 7 which Asus makes for Google...

Annual iPhone cycle helped Samsung destroy Apple in Q2 smartphone sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2017

It appears Samsung is creeping up on Apple slowly but surely. Not content with overtaking Apple and Nokia as the world's largest smartphone and cell phone vendor, respectively, Samsung during the June quarter managed to widen its lead by selling twice as much smartphones as Apple.

Driven by the surprisingly strong start of its latest flagship handset, the Galaxy S III, Samsung has managed to increase its worldwide smartphone share while Apple slid. Man, Apple really needs to refresh the iPhone twice a year because this annual update cycle is becoming the company's Achilles' heel...

Developers think iOS will win the battle for enterprise

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2017

Apple's iPad and iPhone are picking up steam in enterprise lately as big business abandons RIM's sinking BlackBerry platform. Apple's main rival in the enterprise market is of course Google, whose Android is lagging behind iOS in corporate email and security features, but Google makes up for it with its online suite of Office replacement apps called Google Apps, something Apple doesn't have in its offering.

Despite this advantage, developers polled by the mobile platform company Appcelerator and market research firm IDC think iOS has a significant lead over Android. Moreover, 53.2 percent of respondents think iOS will win the battle for enterprise versus 37.3 percent saying that Android will win...

iPad gulps more than two-thirds of market as Amazon’s Fire falls from grace

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 27, 2017

A whopping 91 percent of tech moms want it for Mother’s Day instead of flowers, teachers deem it the future of education (though DoJ disagrees), it's used everywhere for work, has managed to break Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry - and yet it shows no sign of slowing down.

And even as rivals face downturn, folks are picking their iPads like there’s no tomorrow. This is the crux of latest market tablet survey by research firm IDG which pegged Apple's worldwide tablet share in Q1 2012 at 68 percent, up from 54.7-percent in the year-ago quarter.

Apple's growth largely came at the expense of Amazon’s Kindle Fire which plummeted from 16.8 percent share in Q4 2011 to just four percent share in Q1 2012. That's a staggering 12.8-percentage points market share loss in just one quarter. Another way to look at it: Amazon shipped only 700,000 Kindle Fire units in Q1 2012...