If you’re a working stiff looking to get out of a rut, you may want to pass your resume along to Google. A recent survey from Glassdoor ranked the search giant as the top US employer for benefits and pay. According to the study, engineers at Google take home an average salary of around $128,000 annually. The company’s closest tech-related competitor, Facebook came in third place with an average engineer salary of $120,000. Surprisingly absent from the listing’s top accolades was Google’s Silicon Valley rival Apple, which didn’t break into the survey’s top 25. This research is based on voluntary information from employees from each company, so it’s pretty much an account of how employees feel about their jobs. It’s well documented that Google offers some cushy benefits beyond traditional health insurance and retirement packages. Some of Google’s most noteworthy perks include gourmet meals, extra free time for creativity, on-site daycare and additional paid for the birth of a child.
Website owners who want to add visitor satisfaction surveys to their sites can now do so just by adding a single line of code, at a cost of just one cent per response thanks to a new tool from Google Consumer Surveys.
So far the service is limited to US visitors using non-mobile devices, so its immediate value will be limited, but it’s likely to be expanded in scope over time.
As an aside, recent reports that the British government is planning to use Google data as an alternative to its ten-yearly population census have been greatly exaggerated. All that is actually being proposed is to feed in Google Trends data as one small component of the information collated for the census.
Google just gave itself a pat on the back by detailing how Google Consumer Surveys efficiently polls anonymous web users and helps to analyze voter preferences.
“So how’d you all do in your first election with us?” wrote Googler Brett Slatkin on the official Google Politics blog, “Pretty spectacularly.”
FiveThiryEight’s Nate Silver, a media-dubbed “high priest” of polling, called Google Consumer Surveys the “No. 1 most accurate poll online and the No. 2 most accurate poll overall,” according to Slatkin, while the Pew Research Center said Google’s surveys will “likely be an important addition to the research tool kit available to pollsters.”
The surveys run across the web and subsequently earn websites money for showing them, and web surfers can then anonymously submit their responses, and the cropped data gives publishers, such as Texas Tribune, Denver Post, etc., as well as political campaigns, academics, start-ups, and marketers, detailed research to better improve their products.
In related news, Google does more than collect data; the Internet giant also supplies it. Eric Hysen, of the Google Politics and Elections team, said the search engine saw “unprecedented digital engagement in this election on Google and across the web” during the 2012 U.S. Elections.
ChangeWave Research published an interesting survey today proving that people are really loving their Kindle Fire tablet, with more than half of the respondents (54 percent) being “Very Satisfied” with Amazon’s Android-driven tablet versus 74 percent for Apple’s iPad and 49 percent for other tablets. Whilst Amazon is believed to be selling the $199 tablet at a loss, content spending among the Fire owner benefits the online retailer over time.
Specifically, post-purchase spending at Amazon.com is up, with nearly one-third of respondents (29 percent) claiming they will spend more at Amazon in the next 90 days versus just 19 percent for non-Kindle owners. ChangeWave Research, a service of 451 Research, included a look at the reaction of Kindle Fire owners to their gizmo. Price was the determining factor for a whopping 59 percent of owners, followed by its color screen at 31 percent, ease of use at 27 percent and selection of e-reading material at 20 percent…
If Google and Apple were to merge, their respective Android and iOS mobile software would seize well over three-quarters of the world’s platform share in smartphones, per latest Millennial Media’s “Mobile Mix” mobile device usage share report. Separately, Android and iOS held 54 percent and 28 percent share in August. Millennial now includes data from smartphones, tablets, e-readers and gaming devices so direct comparison to their smartphone-focused July study is meaningless.
Apple continued to be the leading device manufacturer on our network in August, representing 23% of the Top 15 Manufacturers impression share (Chart A). Apple iPhone maintained the number one position on the Top 20 Mobile Phones ranking with 13% of the impression share.
Nearly one-third of devices on all carriers used wireless hot spots. Verizon Wireless and Sprint had 18 and 14 percent carrier mix, respectively, followed by T-Mobile USA and AT&T with eight percent each. Games, music and entertainment remain the most popular app categories. iOS represented 41 percent of the app platform mix and Android 49 percent. On Android, News apps rose by 26 percent month-over-month. Go past the fold for a bunch of pretty charts and more explanation.
Apple’s embattled iPhone has had tough time competing against the legions of Android handsets that have flooded the market. That shouldn’t come as a surprise: Carriers are promoting inexpensive Android devices left and right and they are literally everywhere. But how satisfied Android and iPhone users are with their handsets? According to a study of 515 smartphone owners conducted by USB Research (viaGigaOM), iPhone is “sticky” like no other phone, with an average retention rate of 89 percent.
It is falling rapidly for other vendors, though, and the next nearest hardware is HTC with a retention rate of 39 percent and 28 percent for Samsung. Android phones in general are at 55 percent. Nokia and Research in Motion are sinking really fast. The former saw its retention rate drop from 42 percent in March 2010 to just 24 percent and the latter dropped from 62 percent to 33 percent.
The survey may not be terribly accurate due to a small sample size, but it helps understand market trends. People are obviously happy with their iPhones and a large portion of users will happily stay within the Apple ecosystem. USB concludes:
Demand for iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro remains robust, with a leading ecosystem that creates sticky demand.
Truth be told, Android’s low stickiness could be due to its users being more comfortable changing handset manufacturers. Another interesting nugget that bodes well for Apple: Nearly one-third (31 percent) of polled Android users have plans to switch to an iOS device in the future. Also important, more than half the smartphone switchers are in the market for an iPhone while only one in ten iPhone users plan on defecting to other platforms.
In jargon talk, marketeers frequently argue that Android is from Mars and iPhone is from Venus when explaining the different demographics and appeal of the two platforms. Be that as it may, it would be interesting to figure out what apps are people particularly liking on their Android devices. That’s what research firm Nielsen set out to discover in their latest survey that analyzes app trends among U.S. consumers. Based on data obtained from on-device meters on thousands of Android smartphones, Nielsen found out that Google’s own programs dominate the list of most-used Android apps nation-wide.
In addition to Facebook (#2) and Android Market (as expected, it ranked first), the top 10 list based on overall active reach includes Google Map, Gmail, Google Search, YouTube, Adv. Task Killer Free, Angry Birds, QuickOffice Pro and Pandora Radio. Amazon’s storefront app to their own Appstore for Android ranked twelfth.
Gender break down reveals that the Facebook app is more popular with the ladies, reaching 81 percent versus 69 percent for male users. Google+, on the other hand, is more popular with male Android users (15.8 percent active reach) than women (7.2 percent). Google Maps has the highest reach among male Android users, 77.1 percent, second only to Android Market. Twitter, Words With Friends and Kindle apps are more popular with female Android users in the United States.
And while we’re at it, what do you reckon the most profitable apps on Android are? Games? Entertainment? Adult apps? No. It’s weather programs, per research2guidance’s free “Android Market Insights” research note.
Chrome and Android, the two crucial weapons in Google’s assault on mobile and desktop, are showing no signs of stopping. We already reported today that Android passed iOS globally. When it comes to browsing the web, Google’s Chrome zoomed past the 25 percent mark for the first time this weekend, ConceivablyTechobserved. More precisely, Chrome grabbed 25.02 percent share this past Sunday, per StatCounter Global Stats data.
The software has been growing rapidly, registering global market share of 18.29 percent in April, 19.36 percent in May 2011, 20.65 percent in June and 22.14 percent in July. Apple’s Safari grew marginally, adding just 0.02 percentage points to its 5.17 percent share in July. The latest StatCounter data, which may not be representative of the entire market, really spells trouble for Mozilla’s Firefox. Mozilla’s browser used to be the preferred alternative to Microsoft’s market-dominating Internet Explorer not that long time ago. How times change…
Firefox’s share is declining five times faster than Internet Explorer’s, indicating that Chrome is slowly but steadily chipping away at Firefox’s market position, which is now within spitting distance. Firefox scored a 27.49 share for the month of August versus 41.89 percent for Internet Explorer. The fact that only 14.5 percent of web users, or 54 percent of Firefox users, have upgraded to Firefox 6 is another indicative of shifting tides as Google gains significant ground in the web browsing space.
Google also benefits from the silent updating mechanism, a computer process that sits in the background to automatically keep your Chrome installation up to date, without any intervention on your part. Did the latest StatsCounter numbers surprise you? The writing has been on the wall for some time.
Per latest StatCounter Global Stats data, Google’s software platform in August 2011 passed iOS worldwide to rank as the world’s #2 mobile operating system. showing no signs of stopping, Android gained ground at the expense of pretty much every other platform, including Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS, Symbian OS and Apple’s iOS. Of course, stats can be deceiving and phone makers have been boosting Android’s numbers with dirt cheap handsets and BOGO promotions. Let’s not forget that StatCounter base their data on web usage stats obtained from a network of participating sites so the survey does not necessarily paint a representative picture of the whole market.
That being said, Android was trumped only by Symbian OS, which lost 1.46 percent of market share since June 2011. Symbian OS in August grabbed 32.12 percent market share versus 20.6 percent for Android and 19.41 percent for iOS for the month of August. While Apple’s mobile operating system had pretty much held ground during the June-July period, it dropped 0.62 percentage points between July and August.
In the same period of time, BlackBerry OS declined by 0.64 percentage points. Samsung’s own Bada software for feature phones took 6.04 percent market share in August. Interestingly, Microsoft’s Windows Phone doesn’t even blip on the global radar and is probably tucked away under the ‘Unknown’ category which claimed a 5.72 percent share.
Like politics, smartphone wars come down to two major parties – Google and Apple – embroiled in a never-ending fight for consumers, especially those who have not made up their mind as to which operating system they’d like in their next smartphone. According to July 2011 data from Nielsen survey, “these ‘undecideds’ will be the ones device makers will be hoping to win over”. Interestingly, the Late Adopters among likely smartphone upgraders are the ones most likely to be undecided about their next phone platform.
The research firm discovered that forty percent Americans aged 18+ now have smartphones. Android leads the pack with a forty percent OS platform share and iOS came in second with 28 percent. Compared to Nielsen’s June 2011 study, Android grew its share by one percentage point while iOS growth fell flat. The BlackBerry platform lost one percentage share and now stands at nineteen percent.
Of those buying a new smartphone next year, one third would opt for an iPhone and another third would go Android. This leaves other manufacturers outside the Android-iOS duopoly to fight for the remaining 33 percent of buyers.
Android, however, is the preferred platform of choice for the earliest of early adopters:
Among those who say they are usually the first to embrace new technologies, “Innovators” or the earliest of early adopters, Android leads as the “Next Desired Operating System” – 40 percent for Android compared to 32 percent for iOS. (Survey respondents were asked several questions to determine their attitudes toward new technologies.)
A Digitimes Researchsurvey of tablet shipment expectations for 2011 indicates that Apple will retain its lead by a large margin, but also signals the Cupertino, California firm’s share of the tablet market dropping as Android vendors have begun flooding the marketplace with non-Apple tablets in various forms, shapes, sizes and price points. The report says shipments are expected to surpass 65 million this year, up more than 200 percent from 2010. “While Apple remains the dominant player with its iPad line, other major vendors have looking to gain traction in this booming market”, the report notes.
Some 40 million tablets should be sold between June and December, with Apple growing 76 percent compared to H2 2010 and clearing 25.5 million units in H2 2011. This compares to 15.65 million non-Apple tablets predicted in the second half of 2011, a 65 percent increase versus the first half of 2011. This puts Apple’s H2 2011 share of the tablet market at 61 percent versus 39 percent for all other vendors combined. This isn’t bad at all, but it’s worth noting that Apple’s choke hold grip on the tablet market is easing as consumers face tablet choices other than iPad. Research firm Strategy Analytics pegged Apple’s share of the tablet market in the June quarter at 61.3 percent, while Android tablets have gone from 2.9 percent market share in June 2010 to 30.1 percent in June 2011. Also…
Research firm Nielsen chimed in today with a survey that puts Apple as the leading handset maker in the United States whilst Android is portrayed as the top mobile operating system in the country. Those findings follow a recent analysis which had Apple overtaking Nokia to become the world’s leading smartphone vendor in July, also corroborated by IDC figures. According to Nielsen’s June data, Google’s Android remains the nation’s top phone platform with a 39 percent of the country’s consumer smartphone market. Apple’s iOS follows with 28 percent and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion continues to bleed share, down to 20 percent in the second quarter of 2011. Windows Mobile and Windows Phone combined grabbed nine percent, webOS and Palm OS were barely a blip with two percent, as was Nokia’s dying Symbian OS.
Apple on the other hand is the top smartphone maker in the United States that controls 28 percent of the market (excluding iPods and iPads). That’s partly “because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system”, Nielsen argues. HTC shares second spot with Research In Motion with a fourteen percent share of Android devices and six percent of Windows Phones for a total of 20 percent share of the whole market, same as the BlackBerry maker. HTC is also the nation’s leading Android and Windows Phone vendor with 14 percent and six percent share, respectively. No wonder Apple is suing HTC and seeking to ban import of their phones into the US…
IMS Research put out a study estimating that some 420 million smartphones will be sold worldwide in the 2011 calendar year, or 28 percent of all handsets sold. The survey portrays Apple as making huge gains in the space, buoyed on the sales of 18.65 million and 20.34 million iPhones in their last two quarters – enough to garner a 19 percent share of the global smartphone market. Combined with Nokia’s slumping sales, Apple emerged as the world’s leading smartphone maker.
It remains to be seen whether Samsung, which is due to report its earnings Friday, will beat Apple’s smartphone sales (some say it will). IMS noted the fact that the company grew their share of global smartphone market from three percent in the first quarter of 2010 to 13 percent in the first quarter of this year. Samsung, as you know, sells phones powered by Google’s and Microsoft’s software in addition to their own operating system for feature phones, Bada. IMS’s Analyst Josh Builta says this of LG:
LG, despite being the third largest OEM in the world, has offered a fairly limited smartphone portfolio in recent years, a factor that resulted in the company reaching less than a three percent share of the total smartphone market in 2010.
However, Nokia’s fall surprised even the most seasoned watchers and is unheard of in this industry. Nokia, the Finnish phone giant, lost 16 percentage points of its smartphone market share, going from a 40 percent share last year to 24 percent in the first quarter of 2010. They shipped 16.74 million smartphones in the June quarter – a 34 percent annual decline – versus Apple’s 20.34 million units – a 134 percent annual increase. Nokia also killed Symbian and is only shipping the well-received but short-lived MeeGo-powered N9 to select markets. Here’s how the analyst described Nokia’s problem:
Clearly one of the key dynamics of the mobile handset competitive environment in recent years has been the inability of many traditional market leaders to recognize and adjust to the growing smartphone tier. The reasons for these failures vary and include everything from poorly designed and manufactured devices, unsatisfactory user interfaces, and portfolios that don’t offer products with a differentiating feature. These lapses have created opportunities for newer entrants to the market, which they have aggressively pursued.
Research In Motion fell from 20 percent to 15 percent in the same period, mind you. IMS sees one billion smartphones by 2016 as average selling prices drop and vendors release more inexpensive handsets. Smartphones then will account for one of every two mobile handsets sold, the research firm concludes.
Much has been said about a rumored Amazon tablet so far. It should be based on Android, we are told, and Asian source have chimed in with their share of leaks, the latest being that Taiwanese contract manufacturers have begun producing the gizmo, presumably for a Fall launch. But will you take the plunge? That’s what research firm Retrevo set out to figure out in a July study stemming from polling over a thousand online individuals in the US. Key takeaway: Amazon tablet must be really affordable if it’s to hit the ground running.
Asked whether they’d consider buying any Android tablet with similar features over a base model $499 iPad, more than three-quarter respondents, or 79 percent, said “Yes, if it cost less than $250”. Amazon is rumored to be skipping on some tablet features in order to keep production costs down, like use a less expensive touch panel which can only detect two fingers at once.
Of course, Amazon knows how to build gadgets like Kindle and make them less expensive over time. The tablet, however, they’d have to price aggressively from day one as Apple pretty much set the starting price at $499. Nearly half the respondents would choose an Android tablet over an entry-level $499 iPad if it was priced less than $300 and nearly one in three would go Android with a sub-$400 device.
In a blow to other tablet makers, including brands such as Motorola, Samsung, Research In Motion, Hewlett-Packard and others, a whopping 55 percent would seriously consider a tablet from Amazon. This highlights the power of ecosystem which has turned Apple’s tablet into a smash hit. Amazon too has its own app store, music store, movie store and other digital stores in the cloud, bound to create a compelling user experience in the familiar environment from a trusted name in online retail. More food for thought and pretty charts right below…
Following Ancestry.com founder Paul Allen’s estimate that Google+ amassed ten million accounts in just two weeks and the subsequent confirmation from Google, comScore is out today with fresh stats derived from cumulative unique visitor data from around the world. While the research firm did not attempt to estimate the number of unique user accounts, they found out that about 20 million unique visitors worldwide loaded Google+ pages as of July 19, just three weeks after the service debuted:
The evidence shows that Google+ is off to a strong start in its first few weeks with a global audience of 20 million visitors. It has clearly captured the attention of the technorati and as usage incubates among this crowd it will likely continue to proliferate to a more general audience. That number represents an increase of 82% from the previous week and 561% vs. two weeks prior. The U.S. audience recently surpassed 5 million visitors, up 81% from the previous week and 723% from two weeks earlier.
Their data is based on unique visitors and includes visits from both Google+ users and non-users who may have visited plus.google.com pages. Bear in mind that the numbers exclude visits from mobile devices and usage that occurs through the Google+ bar at the top of most Google pages. Google+ seems to be off to a great start everywhere, with 63 percent visits from abroad. The top five non-US markets include India with 2.8 million visitors, the UK (867,000 visitors), Canada (859,000 visitors) and Germany (706,000 visitors). More interesting data points right below the fold.
Research firm Strategy Analytics discovers that shipments of Android-driven tablets are finally beginning to make a meaningful impact on the overall tablet market. Yes, Android slates are making their presence known, even though iPad is still king of the hill. According to the research firm’s survey, June quarter tablet shipments topped 15.1 million units, a material increase over the 3.5 million units from the year-ago period. Apple seized the #1 slot with 9.25 million iPads the company reported for the June quarter, representing a 61.3 percent share of the tablet market overall.
At the same time, Android tablets have gone from 2.9 percent market share in June 2010 to 30.1 percent in June 2011, a surprising 27.2 percentage points increase based on sales of 4.55 million units. In the year-ago quarter Apple enjoyed a 94 percent share, so iPad’s 33 percentage points drop is substantial no matter how you look at it. GSM Arenaobserves that “in terms of market share, the iOS lead in the past quarter is nearly three times smaller than it was in the same period of last year”.
Nearly three-quarters of Android sales in Britain during a twelve-week period ended June 12 came from people upgrading from so-called feature phones to their first smartphone. In addition, only 1.8 percent of new Android sales came from iOS users jumping ship, a Kantar Woldpanel ComTech survey reveals. The research didn’t take into account corporate sales or contracts and was based on extensive interviews with up to one million consumers in Europe alone.
Android has grown its share of total US handset market to 9.2 percent in June of this year, up over just one percent a year ago. The platform had a 45.20 percent share of the entire smartphone market in the country, while iOS fell from 30.6 percent share in June 2010 to 18.3 percent share in June 2011. A big part of this was price: Apple’s is among the priciest consumer smartphones and only 45 percent contracts offer the device for free versus 90 percent for Android phones.
The fall of iOS came as a result of the overall UK market growing at a faster pace than iPhone sales, which have been overshadowed for the past two months as Samsung’s Galaxy S II smartphone emerged as the best-selling smartphone. In the US, Android and iOS had 57 percent and 28.7 percent market share last month, respectively. Android is clearly victorious in Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Australia and Japan, where the platform enjoys a whopping 64.7 percent share of the smartphone market versus 27.7 percent for iOS.
Kantar analysts predict that by this time next year smartphones would account for nearly 50 percent of the overall handset market, thanks to more and more feature phone owners dumping their devices for smartphones. This is not unexpected because trends hint that eventually all phones will become smartphones. Other phone vendors are experiencing sharp declines around the world, especially Symbian which has been bleeding share as Nokia fights for survival.
A big milestone today as Google’s Chrome hits a cool 20 percent web usage share according to StatCounter numbers for the month of June (via TNW) based on aggregate data collected from their network of three million websites.
For the first time ever, Chrome passed the 20 percent mark globally, accounting for 20.65 share of all web browsing the world over. Compare that to just 2.8 percent in the year-ago period. Google’s browser is now chasing Firefox which fell from 30 percent in June 2010 to 28 percent in June 2011. All versions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer have also fallen to 44 percent globally, down from 59 percent in June 2010.
In the United States Chrome’s rise was less rapid, hitting 16 percent in June while Microsoft’s and Mozilla’s browsers scored 46.5 percent and 24.7 percent, respectively. What’s especially interesting is Chrome’s share in South America where it grabbed 29.72 percent of the market, beating Firefox (24 percent) to the browser punch (Microsoft’s browser had 44.1 percent share). An indication of things to come globally?
With an IDC-estimated 10.8 million units shipped during the first quarter of this year, Samsung files as the world’s fourth-largest smartphone vendor, behind Nokia, Apple and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. However, the rising popularity of Samsung’s feature phones and dumb handsets powered by their own operating system called Bada has helped the Korean phone maker capture the #2 slot in terms of all handset units shipped globally.
Samsung was outdone only by Nokia in the first quarter. According to IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, Samsung shipped 70 million handset units during the first quarter of this year versus the 108.5 million Nokia phones. With 18.7 million iPhones Apple came in fourth, behind LG Electronics which shipped 24.5 million handsets. That was last quarter…
The global handset landscape is going to alter rapidly by the June quarter’s end, predicts Japanese research firm Nomura. Their analyst was quoted as saying that “Nokia looks set to relinquish its smartphone crown (in unit terms) to Samsung and Apple”. This means, their analyst argues, that Nokia will be #3, with Samsung and Apple taking the #1 and #2 slots, respectively. Mind you, Nokia has been the world’s top handset maker since 1996…
Gmail was the most widely used Google Apps service for Brown University (above), but Chat tops the customer satisfaction charts (below)
Brown University conducted a telling survey in May, asking some 1,100 students and faculty/staff members to evaluate Brown’s migration to Google Apps for Education eighteen months ago. Like everywhere, Gmail was the service of choice for a whopping 98 percent of the respondents, but satisfaction index for Chat – used by two-thirds of the respondents – topped the charts: 99 percent for Chat versus Gmail’s 90 percent. Nearly five out of five undergraduate, graduate and professional student respondents were “Very Satisfied” or “Satisfied” with Google’s web-based email.
Google Sites was less popular, having been used by one in three respondents. Docs and Calendar were used by the respectable 85 percent and 79 percent of the respondents, respectively. Most frequently used apps on a daily basis? Gmail (97 percent), Calendar (60 percent), Chat (33 percent), Documents (29 percent) and Sites (eight percent). And when issues rose, nearly half the respondents sought answers on Google’s official help pages and Google search.
More food for thought and four additional pretty charts bellow.
Gartner is out with their first quarter 2011 mobile phone market survey. The results are astounding. The first quarter belonged to Google and everyone else was reduced to extras in an Android show. Both Apple and Google grew their respective share of the smartphone market, estimated at 100.8 million quarterly units – nearly double the 54.5 million units from the year-ago quarter. Smartphones grew 85 percent and cut into sales of regular handsets, accounting for almost one quarter (23.6 percent) of the 427.8 million handsets shipped during the first quarter.
Predictably, Android was the leading smartphone platform in the first quarter of 2011. And here comes your mind-boggling takeaway: More Android-powered smartphones were sold during the first quarter than the combined sales of Apple’s iPhone, RIM’s BlackBerrys, Microsoft Windows Phone smartphones and vendors belonging to the Other OS category. And that is worldwide, mind you. Go ahead, do the math yourself (the below table).
It’s fascinating that Microsoft and Symbian combined had three percentage points lower market share than Android. Also, while Apple doubled iPhone sales, they barely gained any marketshare. This just shows that Android is gobbling up market share at a rapid pace, eating pretty much everyone’s lunch in the process…
A pattern is emerging in smartphones. Think about it, the same scenario has been playing out over and over in every territory where Google and Apple battle for supremacy. Apple first wows the market with its iPhone. Then, Google brute forces its way into the game and eventually takes the lead thanks to countless Android handsets in all shapes, sizes and price points, carried by virtually all wireless operators. Japan, however, is an indication of a new pattern that has iOS and Android forming a duopoly that squeezes out entrenched players, upping the barrier to entry.
In the latest survey of the Japanese market by MMI Research Institute reported by Bloomberg Businessweek, Android posted an incredible 2,000 percent year-over-year growth, capturing 57 percent of the country’s 2010 smartphone market versus 38 percent for Apple’s handset (as big as anywhere) – a notable decline for the iPhone’s 72 percent share from a year earlier and also a catastrophic loss for other platforms.
Shipments of Android phones rose to 4.91 million units in the year ended March 31, Tokyo-based MM Research said in a statement today. That compares with sales of 250,000 units, or 11 percent of the market, a year earlier when devices running Google’s software started to be widely available in Japan.
Apple shipped 3.23 million iPhones in the country in the last fiscal year, all sold excursively via Softbank. The combined 57 percent share for Android plus 38 percent for iPhone leaves little room for Nokia and BlackBerry maker Research In Motion. Both brands have been reduced to the Others category with a minuscule five percent market share. Is this a sign of things to come? Read on…
