[moakleaf]

Android is not becoming a monopoly...

Android's market share is larger than the iPhone, but iPhone's market share is still growing(!), and it is still quite significant.

I think a lot of the negative sentiment comes from the fact that people think that the iPhone (as a platform) was number one at one point, and is now number two in market share. At the same time people think Android is one phone. Neither of these statements are true.

The best selling phones are still iPhones.

Android is not a single device or company but a highly competitive market by itself. It is really really hard to compete on that market, because you need something to stand out of the crowd. It is also really really hard to be innovative, because everyone has access to the latest version of Android OS, and in today's market, pretty much everybody has access to the underlying hardware. The only thing that matters is if you can squeeze your supply chain enough to get a large enough profit. This is where both Samsung and Apple have reputations of being very strong -- For different reasons.

In reality, most customers don't really care that much about megapixel count, number of CPU cores, memory, etc.

So as an Android phone-maker, the only place to really distinguish yourself is by custom "home-screens" and exterior design. Exterior design is difficult.

A couple of months ago Samsung was the only company profiting from Android phones. Apple still takes the majority (more than half) of the smartphone profit. I don't know if either of that has changed in the last quarter (we'll see).

But Android is not a monopoly it is a lot of different manufacturers fighting over around 50-70% of the market share with very similar products. Samsung has the majority of that market.

The currently only major alternative to Android, iPhone, on the other hand is made by one company.

[adventured]

Android is becoming a monopoly in the same respect that Windows ever was. It's no different for Android running on multiple hardware vendors, ala Dell / HP / Compaq / Gateway / etc etc back in the day. It's the market consolidating around a standard.

Android is going to take 85%+ of the global smart phone market. There's absolutely nothing that can or will stop that from happening at this point. It's going to be the obnoxious standard that everybody is going to complain about for the next decade.

The iPhone's market share will stop growing this year. Android and the iPhone have squeezed out most of the serious competition, and now their market share lines are going to run head to head. Android will win that battle, and begin pushing the iPhone's market share backwards within four quarters.

Apple's approach was always going to guarantee it got boxed into a corner. It's a +/- to their approach that they can start new markets, and then lose them fairly quickly.

That's my opinion.

[sneak]

I don't know about 85%+. Sure, a majority, but the big differentiator these days (vs MacOS/Win32) is HTML5/JS.

Lots of things don't need to be native apps, and aren't/won't be. There isn't as much downside to picking the minority OS anymore.

This is further strengthened by the fact that Apple's hardware is expensive, and people targeting spenders will still (and, imho, always will) do iOS first (and sometimes only). Fred Wilson's famous android-first-because-it-has-the-most-marketshare advice only makes sense if you're a Facebook or a WhatsApp and raw triple-digit millions of users matter to you. If you're e.g. Uber, you don't give two fucks about four fucks for the people buying the inevitable $39 Android tablets of the future. _Which_ users matter a lot more to the vast majority of app devs than _how many_ users.

That said, I think Apple will eventually be found to retain _at least_ 25% of the final size of the market— and the top 25% at that.

[adventured]

Most of the estimates I've seen peg current global Android market share at 68% to 73%, with iOS at 20%x.

I would argue that Apple will lose upwards of half that position in the next two years. China alone will hammer them on market share, as Android will completely dominate the domestic Chinese market via cheap smart phones (particularly as the Chinese are heavily promoting their own vendors).

I think it'll be 80% to 85% Android, 8% to 12% iOS, with most of the remaining going to Windows and Blackberry (if Blackberry survives).

The history of technology markets consolidating toward a single standard (usually in the 65% to 85% market share range), leads me to believe that given the scale + momentum + competitive advantages that Android has, it's likely to creep toward that 80% quasi-monopoly line, and very soon.

[seanmcdirmid]

Like I said in a previous post, the Apple store in Sanlitun Village (Beijing) keeps doing $1m+ sales a day, iPhones keep becoming more ubiquitous here, not less, and Android headsets are seen as a good choice...for farmers who can't afford iPhones. Ya, XiaoMi is great...if you can't afford an iPhone. Those officials would love to push domestic vendors, except they are too busy buying iPhones for themselves and their family.

China will eventually overtake the US as Apple's largest market, everyone knows this; Cook admitted it, and it wasn't controversial when he said it.

[sneak]

Yes, we all read DF too. A for comprehension, B- for essay.