Question: How long will it be before Android is the truly dominant phone OS?

Journey · 9 Dec 2010 at 18:54

Well just looking over at Engadget and I came across the article linked below, apparently 300,000 Android handsets are being activated daily. If it stayed at that rate for a whole year (not increasing which it will) that's 109.5 million handsets in a year, don't see anyone getting close to this.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/09/andy-rubin-over-300-000-android-phones-activated-daily/

Tunney · 9 Dec 2010 at 19:09

Journey said:
If it stayed at that rate for a whole year (not increasing which it will) that's 109.5 million handsets in a year, don't see anyone getting close to this.

Symbian and iOS are at about the same activation rate. However, if Android can keep up its phenomenal growth rate then it could become the undisputed mobile OS leader in 12-24 months. It's a hard one to predict though.

Journey · 9 Dec 2010 at 19:14

I thought iOS had settled to around 250,000 per day including non-phone devices such as the iPad and iPod Touch? It was 230,000 in September I seem to recall.

Not sure about Symbian, but I'd hardly class that as a modern smart phone OS in it's current form anyhow.

CliffyBiro · 9 Dec 2010 at 19:17

Fragmentation?

Aren't there iPhones out there that couldn't update to iOS4?

And those that could, a fair number wouldn't get all of the features of it.

Amp34 · 9 Dec 2010 at 20:05

skippi90 said:
Fragmentation?

Aren't there iPhones out there that couldn't update to iOS4?

And those that could, a fair number wouldn't get all of the features of it.

Yes but difference is they are old phones, techincally not sold any more.

Same could be said to an extent about Android phones but the line is a bit more blurred.

Tunney · 9 Dec 2010 at 21:49

Journey said:
I thought iOS had settled to around 250,000 per day including non-phone devices such as the iPad and iPod Touch? It was 230,000 in September I seem to recall.

October's numbers were 270,000 per day. I would assume by now it's around 300,000. It's impossible to tell for sure though.

Not sure about Symbian, but I'd hardly class that as a modern smart phone OS in it's current form anyhow.

Either way, it's still selling well.

osc89er · 9 Dec 2010 at 21:54

Tunney said:
October's numbers were 270,000 per day. I would assume by now it's around 300,000. It's impossible to tell for sure though.

Techmeme says its 300k a day now, for Android anyway.

Journey · 10 Dec 2010 at 15:11

osc89er said:
Techmeme says its 300k a day now, for Android anyway.

Yeah that was already said in the post I made, what we were after is an accurate iOS activation rate.

Going from the fact that Best Buy are doing free iPhones 3GS handsets now, which is the first time an iPhone has been free on contract in North America, they have either got lots of excess inventory or they are feeling the pinch from WP7 and Android and seeing sales of the lower end Apple devices tail off.

I'm half tempted to grab a borked iPhone and fix it up just to spend more time with the OS to see if it can grab my interest.