NPD - The NPD Group Inc. (formerly National Purchase Diary) is a leading North American market research company - released news that the Android operating system now takes the number two spot in number of users, trumping Apple’s iPhone. Android is now only behind RIM in number of smartphone users. The drilled-down numbers are: 36% on RIM smarthphones, Android at 28% and iPhone OS at 21%.
Ross Rubin, an analyst for NPD stated: “As in the past, carrier distribution and promotion have played a crucial role in determining smartphone market share, in order to compete with the iPhone, Verizon Wireless has expanded its buy-one-get-one offer beyond RIM devices to now include all of their smartphones.”
According to NPD, strong sales of the Droid line for Verizon helped keep their sales in toe with AT&T’s line of smartphones. As for the future, Rubin also had some predictions:
“Recent previews of BlackBerry 6, the recently announced acquisition of Palm by HP, and the pending release of Windows Phone 7 demonstrates the industry’s willingness to make investments to address consumer demand for smartphones and other mobile devices. Carriers continue to offer attractive pricing for devices, but will need to present other data-plan options to attract more customers in the future.”
Very interesting news today, as I certainly did not expect Android to overtake iPhone so soon. As for how this effects things in the future, it’s still unknown but this is not something I expected.
