ABI: Android to Hold 45% of Global Market by 2016

[phandroid]

Let me know if you”ve heard this one before. Another research firm – ABI, this time – expects Android to hold 45% of the market share by 2016. It closely mirrors IDC’s prediction the other day that states Android will enjoy 45.4% of the market by 2015. The breakdown below Android looks to be a [...]

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[eXpoZie]

Pretty intense.

 

[Covart]

5 years is an eternity in the computer/phone/tablet business. Anything can happen in that time. He'll, the iPhone and Android weren't even out yet 5 years ago.

To hard to predict anything that far out.

 

[jroc]

^Very good point. Like some ppl forget or just dont know Win Mo was at or near the top in market share 5 years ago.

 

[Drhyde]

Crap, it's Apple vs. Microsoft all over again. I almost feel bad for Apple getting dominated. Almost.

 

[Covart]

Crap, it's Apple vs. Microsoft all over again. I almost feel bad for Apple getting dominated. Almost.

It's really hard to use the word dominate when it comes to this sort of thing. While Android-based phones are widely available from a multitude of manufacturers and cell providers, no single Android-based phone outsells Apple's iPhone. However, if you add all phones running Android together, then yes, Android-based phones dominate nearly everyone (and likely soon will take over Nokia as #1).
If you look at it through dollar signs, then Apple dominates the world.
If you look at it through sales figures, then Symbian dominates the world.
If you look at it through growth percentage, then Google dominates the world.

It's all perspective and in essense, Google, Apple and Nokia all dominate in some form and fashion.

 

[pr0nstarz]

**** apple, they don't support flash..and tell the world to get with the program, use HTML 5. Which to most programmers, for all intensive purposes isn't even available nor ready to use.

You make a crappy buisness model, you will get f'ed in the A eventually. And I wouldin't lose any sleep over it.

 

[Aatos.1]

I've been a serious smartphone user since the category was created. I've had every mobile OS and many handsets. Of everything I've had, I prefer Android by a very wide margin. That said I have a few concerns about it's future.

1) Apple has such a cult like following they have a head start in terms of being able to sell anything to their fanboys and girls, as well as the general public.

Being perceived as cool, does it in most cases. The massive momentum they have presently is quite amazing. That they could take something as simple as an iPad and sell the numbers they do, proves that more than anything, the ever arrogant, egotistical, condescending Steve Jobs can sell anything.

Also their stuff is so simple that it takes no thinking. As much as I detest the locked down ecosystem they have it's working to make them filthy rich which further strengthens them.

Finally it seems as though no matter what Apple does they get great press and it just really irritates me that even bad engineering like the crappy antenna on the iPhone 4, blows over quickly and they keep selling them with no consequences. I speak from experience having an iPhone 4 and the phone is terrible.

2) Fragmentation.

I hate to even write that word these days, because Apple's used it so much to trash Android. And you know what happens when something is said frequently, the press picks it up and it never goes away.

Unlike Apple the news around Android and overall "noise" in the blogosphere hasn't been that positive over the last week or so. As much as I hate to admit it, Jobs is charismatic and gets positive attention. We have no counterpart on the Google Android side of things, so even with all else being equal we are underdogs.

Frankly I see it not so much as fragmentation even though is a classic sense that could be argued. I see it as choices. Lots of different handsets is good and the only real issue is so many versions of Android on the street (so to speak) that some phones go back to 1.6 and some have the latest 2.2, 2.3 or higher.

I hope these recent moves that Google is making will reign in the various handset makers but that's a really tough task. If the Android group can get focused on the same version and sort it out well. Get it into the devices that are being rolled out all at the same time, then we have a unified experience for Android users and that is just what we need.

I want nothing more than to see Android be wildly successful over the long haul and the sooner the better.

 

[ari-free]

I take the long term approach. Nobody will care about charisma 5 years from now. What matters is the ability to adapt to new tech and ideas, especially when it comes to user interface on a fundamental level.
WinMo failed because it was caught with its pants down with a UI designed for stylus/resistive screen technology and had to completely dump everything, including all its apps, in order to deal with multitouch approach of the iPhone. Android was designed for a touchscreen interface and could only benefit from the multiple OEM's behind it.