It seems fair to say that since the release of iPhone 6, A-series processor updates have been more for future-proofing purposes rather than present necessity for the average user. As a result, biennial upgrades, let alone annual iPhone swaps, became increasingly rare — demonstrated by ever shrinking Apple Store lines proceeding a new launch. Now, the anecdotal findings are being corroborated by industry analyst Toni Sacconaghi from Bernstein, who says that the average iPhone upgrade time has increased to four years, up from three years in fiscal 2018.
IDC just released its latest numbers on the top smartphones by operating system showing iOS and Android continue to collectively dominate the market with both experiencing growth during 2014. Together, iOS and Android grabbed 96.3% of all smartphone shipments, which IDC points out is up from 95.6% in 4Q13 and from 93.8% in calendar year 2013.
According to the latest numbers from IDC, Xiaomi—the rising star of the smartphone industry—has managed to pass up Samsung in China. In 2013, Xiaomi trailed Samsung’s almost 19% market share by a solid 13 percentage points (at just 5.3%), and was only the 5th largest maker of smartphones in China. Things changed in 2014. Last year, Xiaomi finished off with 12.5% of the market, almost a half-point more than Samsung at 12.1%, taking the top spot and passing not just Samsung, but Lenovo, Huawei, and Coolpad as well.
Interestingly, though, the latest numbers also show that Apple’s launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus contributed to a decent size dent in both Samsung and Xiaomi’s market footprint in Q4 of last year. Expand Expanding Close
comScore has released its US smartphone subscriber study for the three month period ending July. Reflecting similar observations by Millenial Media, iOS continues its ascendancy in the US market. comScore computes its marketshare figures based on active subscribers, which is generally seen as a more reliable representation of market trends than web usage traffic, which is what Millenial uses.
comScore reports that iOS was the only platform to show positive growth, rising 1.2 points from 39.2% in April to 40.4% in June. In comparison, Android fell 0.2 percentage points with even larger decreases experienced by BlackBerry which dropped from 5.1% to 4.3%. Windows Phone’s share remained constant at 3.0%.
Apple was able to maintain its lead of smartphone sales in the U.S. market during the holiday quarter ending Dec. 23, according to new data released by Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. The report said iOS was the top-selling smartphone platform during the three-month period, as it recorded 51.2-percent of market sales compared to Android’s 44.2-percent.
While Android’s share of the market remained steady, down from just 44.2-percent last year, Kantar noted an increasing number of iPhone sales to other smartphone users. Sales of iPhones to Android users apparently grew 10 percent compared to 2011:
“In particular, 36% of iOS sales were derived from other smartphone users over the last year. While this figure remains stable over time, the proportion of Android users moving towards the Apple brand increases. 19% of iOS sales over the last year were derived from Android users, compared to 9% in 2011,”
Among the switchers, the majority came from Verizon. About 49 percent of new iPhone sales came specifically from users of another smartphone platform, while 30 percent came from Android users. AT&T, however, only had about 6 percent Android switchers, as the majority of new iPhone purchases—55 percent—were derived from iPhone upgrades: Expand Expanding Close
On the strength of iPhone 5 sales, iOS has once again reached the top spot for smartphone market share in the United States, according to new data from Research firm Kantar Worldpanel Comtech (via Reuters). According to the report that tracked smartphone sales over the last 12 weeks ending Oct. 28, iOS now accounts for 48.1-percent of the U.S. smartphone market. That’s up 25 percent year-over-year, and it officially bumps Android into second place, but is still just shy of the record 49.3-percent it was able to capture earlier this year.
Android was down from 63.3-percent marketshare over the same 12-week period last year to just 46.7-percent today. As for the rest of the world, you can see from Kantar’s data for other countries in the chart below that Android still dominates in most other countries, including: 54.2-percent of the market in Britain, 81.7-percent of the market in Spain, and 73.9-percent in Germany.
Dominic Sunnebo, global consumer insight director at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, comments: “The last time we saw iOS overtake Android in the US was when the iPhone 4S was released and Apple managed to retain its lead for three consecutive periods. This time we predict that Apple will beat its previous high of 49.3% and achieve its highest ever share of the US smartphone market within the next two periods.”
The report also provided some data on iPhone 5 sales, noting 62 percent came from existing Apple device owners upgrading. Apple also captured 13 percent of iPhone 5 sales from Android switchers: Expand Expanding Close
Worldwide Mobile Device Sales to End Users by Operating System in 3Q12
Gartner is out with its quarterly report for worldwide mobile device sales by vendor and OS for the third quarter. While reporting an overall 3 percent decline in mobile phone sales, the smartphone category hit 169.2 million units in Q3, a 47 percent increase from the year-ago quarter. While Apple is still third to Samsung and Nokia for total mobile device sales, Samsung and Apple remain the top smartphone vendors collectively, capturing 46.5-percent of the market. Meanwhile, Nokia slipped from No. 3 smartphone vendor in Q2 to No. 7 in Q3. This made room for RIM and HTC behind Apple and Samsung in the third and fourth positions.
With sales of 23.6 million units in the third quarter for Apple (up 36.2-percent year-on-year), Gartner reported Samsung widened its lead on Apple with almost 55 million smartphones in the quarter and strong demand for its Galaxy line. Samsung once again takes the top vendor position for smartphones with 32.5-percent of the market:
Samsung’s mobile phones sales continued to accelerate, totaling almost 98 million units in the third quarter of 2012 (see Table 1), up 18.6 percent year-on-year. Samsung saw strong demand for Galaxy smartphones across different price points, and it further widened the gap with Apple in the smartphone market, selling 55 million smartphones in the third quarter of 2012. It commanded 32.5 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter of 2012.
As for the race between Android and iOS, Gartner’s numbers show Android increased its marketshare nearly 20 percentage points in the quarter to 72.4-percent of the market, up from just 52.5-percent in the year-ago quarter. In comparison, Apple now accounts for 13.9-percent of the market, down from 15 percent last year, but Gartner expects that to change in Q4 thanks to the continuing iPhone 5 roll out: Expand Expanding Close
Apple was able to maintain its lead of smartphone sales in the U.S. market during the holiday quarter ending Dec. 23, according to 
