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Over 800 different Android devices have launched to date and there are over 300 million of them in the hands of gadget lovers across the globe right now. Google’s adding a staggering 850,000 devices a day too, and there’s no signs of sales letting up. It’s app store isn’t doing too badly either with some 450,000 apps in its mobile ecosystem and over one billion of the blighters downloaded each month.
With these kinds of stats there’s no mistaking it — Android is certainly blazing along with the sheer number of devices out there in the modern smartphone wars. Google’s so pleased it’s even bolted on some fancy ‘app pods’ onto its Android stand at MWC, and has over 100 devices trundling through on its conveyor belt bar.
If the last day few days Android announcements have been anything to go by, 2012 certainly looks to be the year of Android — at least on the awesome hardware front. Maybe with Ice Cream Sandwich on quad-core hardware Android has finally come of age as a slick, deliciously tasty experience. [Google]
Well, it is a pretty great phone OS.
That’s just shy of 100 devices EVERY SECOND. Remember too, that this is only official devices (ones that have Google Apps on them and thus can be logged) this doesn’t count the Kindle fire, nooks or a whole bunch of Chinese made tablets and phones.
Apologies, Maths fail. 10 devices a second. Doesn’t sound so impressive, but still pretty amazing.
Looking at the slew of really nice Android high end handsets from Sony, HTC and some great budget offerings from Huwei etc, and of course the incoming Samsung Galaxy S3, I can bet that we will be seeing 1m Android handsets a day activated before summer…
It’s clearly not slowing, Android is gaining some extraordinary pace.
It’ll make a great announcement for Google I/O if they get there.
I’d love to get Android tablet one day. One day-when I understand what they offer. So far it’s like 2 new devices a day. I used to be early gadget adopter and I still follow all news. I’m now loosing track on Androids. I guess I’ll stick with my iDevices for now. This way only have to upgrade once in 2 years and still sell my old gear for nearly full or least half price that I have paid then.
What they offer:
No Lock-in, you aren’t tied to iTunes, you can buy your content from where you wish, you can load what you wish.
MUCH better cameras (not the frankly shit 700kp cameras the iPad2 has), better screen resolution.
More processing power, Asus Transformer Prime not only have a proper keyboard, but is a quad-core process (5 cores if you want to get technical).
Perhaps the biggest advantage? They are actually useful rather than fashion accessories.
“you can buy your content from where you wish” – I do.
“They are actually useful rather than fashion accessories.” – I use my iPad 2 at home, at Uni and at my work (IT Technician). It’s useful.
Sounds a lot but how does that compare to Apple (or Win Phone even)?
http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-01-09/tech/30606530_1_new-iphone-android-sales-verizon-customers
Interesting chart here. Looks like Apple’s last phone has vastly improved their market share at the expense of Android in the last quarter (presumably this is US states. Disclaimer: I’m an Android user!).
Whoever wrote that article is an idiot.
“As you can see Android has 47% of the market compared to Apple’s 43%. That is a dramatic change from the third quarter when Android had 60% of the market to Apple’s 26%.”
Wrong. Market share is not the same thing as sales share.
What it says is that in Q3 2011, Android had 60% of SALES (not market share).
What this graph tells us is that actually, Android has INCREASED the gap between the share of the market that Android has and the share that Apple has – Android had bigger market share before, and in Q4 2011 Android still had a higher share of sales, therefore Apple has not cannibalised ANY Android market share (only slowed the rate at which Apple loses market share).
All above statements only based on that one graph, feel free to point me any other info that contradicts what I just said though…
Ok, maybe I’m the idiot. Perhaps that IS the definition of market share (i.e. sales in a quarter).
It seems like a naive way to look at market share though, seeing as installed user base and customer loyalty to one ecosystem are very important