Android Overtakes iPhone OS in the US

Just weeks after predictions that Android would become the second most widely-used mobile software platform worldwide by 2012-13, Google's OS has just overtaken iPhone OS to become number two in the US.  RIM remains in first place, with its BlackBerrys enjoying 36% market share.

Smartphone sales are going strong, fuelling Android's growth.  According to the latest research from analysts at NPD Group, who interviewed 150 000 consumers, more Android-based phones (which now includes around thirty different handsets according to Google) were sold than iPhones in the first quarter of 2010.

Google's OS now enjoys 28% of market share across the pond, but that's hardly surprising given the number of manufacturers and networks that have bet on Android as being a success.  Apple, now relegated into third place with 21% of the market only has two separate phones and a single partner network in the US.

Look Ahead

Things could easily change before the year is out though.  More and more Android handsets are on their way.  Chinese manufacturers ZTE and Huawei are set to release new models, while Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and HTC have also promised to further develop the OS, as have several mobile networks who are increasingly willing to invest in advertising the platform.

The latest iPhone should be available at the start of June, with version 4.0 of iPhone OS following soon after.  A little later, the arrival of autumn will signal the first smartphones running Microsoft's new Windows Phone 7 Series.

And RIM, which, like Apple, ties its software to its own hardware, has just released a significant update of its own OS which is set to make it even more attractive to the manufacturers' new target audience, the general public.

Finally, at the end of 2010, the first handsets to come out of Palm since it was bought out by HP will begin to arrive.

The competition which is driving the sector forward shows no sign of abating, and the investment already made is too important for that.  And as for consumers, we're going to have to juggle an ever wider number of options.  Choosing the right smartphone is not going to be easy.  All of this could well be a foretaste of what happens with the market for touchscreen tablets ...



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