Android is number one OS among US phone buyers over the last six months

engadget.com

4 points·lotusleaf1987··3 comments

The basic issue here is that in the US, iphone is only available with 1 carrier - AT&T -- which has only 30% or less of the wireless customers in the country. Since the reach is so low, iphone has to have a low market share. Once it is available with all carriers in the US, then it will be an even playing field. Even then ofcourse, it will have to compete against 20+ android phones, atleast it will have the opportunity to. In Europe, where iphone is generally available with more than 1 carrier, it's rate of getting new subscribers is still 3 times android! See:

http://www.clickz.com/clickz/stats/1733041/apple-google-cont...

GOOG and its partners seem to be focused on the US. AFAIK none of the EU carriers are spending anywhere near as much as VZ or Sprint on Android marketing.

In the UK Android is everywhere, but only since about July (the date of those figures) when Carphone Warehouse shops were plastered with the little green Android figure (rather than carrier specific branding like "Droid" that the US apparently opts for). The number of devices seemed to explode around that time too, with Galaxy S and refreshes of the HTC and Motorola lines.

And if you follow stories about dirt cheap, but still impressively spec'ed low-end handsets like the Orange San Francisco (aka ZTE Blade) I don't think you'd find it unlikely that Android will rapidly overtake iOS here too.

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