How the Apple iPhone can overtake Android Phones

ComScore released on April 1st statistics about the mobile market share in the United States. Google's Android OS was able to gain 7% market share. It now has a 3rd of the US market. Apple's iOS is pretty much stuck at 25% on 3rd place. RIM has a bit more than Apple at 28.2% in the ComScore report.

If Android can continue this growth it will become the dominating mobile OS by the end of 2011. The only company that can stop this from happening is Apple. But Apple would need to start being more aggressive than it has been so far.

In the tablet world Apple has an easy play right now with the iPad. Nobody comes near it right now. The software, hardware and service combination at the $500 price-point is apparently too tough for the competition to beat in 2011. The smartphone market it is a different picture. At least in the US. Web analytic company webtrekk issued a mobile OS market share report for Germany that shows that Apple's iOS devices have 81.46% market share (based on online access). The iPhone has 45.26% alone compared to Android with 9.04%.

So why is the iPhone dominating the mobile phone market in Germany and not in the United States? I live in Germany and actually do not know anybody using an Android Phone. Even my open source die-hard Linux fans roll with the iPhone.

Android is also growing in Germany, but is still very far behind. Apple needs to find a way to create for the iPhone again a critical combination of software, hardware and service at a price-point the competition cannot touch. What is not helping here are rumors that Apple is not going to release a new iPhone this June. A fall release of a new iPhone makes sense though because of the intense shopping season that commences with Black Friday sales at the end of October. On the other hand Android can gain a lot of market share until Fall with new cool 4G phones and other new releases.

I am sticking with the iPhone. I am over 40 and I am done with trying things out. I have almost moved my whole gadget infrastructure to Apple in the last two years. I am waiting for a new iPhone though, as I still have a 3GS. Good thing my iPad 2 is coming soon, hopefully.

About Android Phones:
Android smartphones stumbled onto the scene in November of 2007. The first Android handset was the T-Mobile G1, released in October of 2008. Today's most popular line of Android phones is the Galaxy S from Samsung. The Nexus S is Google's current flagship Developer Phone. Although initially founded as an open-source alternative to closed ecosystems like iOS, Android has grown less open as time has gone on. Largely as a response to fragmentation and as a way to buoy the App Market.

The Android Market launched on October 22, 2008. Paid applications went live a few months later in 2009. There are now over 200,000 Android apps that have been downloaded an estimated 2.5 billion times. Unlike Apple's App Store, there are no real controls on who can put an App on the Market. This has lead to numerous malware outbreaks as well as rapid growth.

Android has been the world's leading smartphone platform since January of 2011. The most recent software release was Android 2.3/2.4, Gingerbread. The next anticipated update will be called Ice Cream and is expected to fuse Gingerbread and Honeycomb (the tablet OS) into a single OS. Release is slated for mid-2011.

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