The news has been plastered all over the web, many thought it might happen and now it apparently has. In the first quarter of 2010, sales of Android mobiles have finally overtaken sales of the Apple iPhone for the first time ever, according to the NPD Group.
According to NPD data, Although RIM’s Blackberry fell by a few percent it is still way out in front as market leader with 36 percent of the market share.
Android was up to 28 percent of the market share for mobile operating systems, whereas iPhone was lagging behind at only 21 percent.
However, before anyone gets too excited and thinks that Android have done what no one or nothing else has managed to do and take the iPhone down a peg or two, PC World is keen to point out that the statistics are somewhat misleading.
First of all they maintain that drastic price reductions and offers of buy one get one free, gives a false sense of the true nature of Android’s apparent success.
Furthermore, recent statistics from ComScore showed that Google’s Android operating system had less than 10 percent of the market share in February, whereas Apple’s iPhone had over 25 percent, which means there is still quite a gap between them.
We also have to consider that NPD’s statistics are based on 150,000 responses to its monthly online consumer research survey which may not offer a true reflection of the market, as the ones who actually sign up and complete it are likely to be the more tech savvy than much of the rest of the population, so basically the figures are probably skewed.
PC World are also highlighting another factor that might have influenced the sales figures and that is that many people who might otherwise have acquired an iPhone invested in an iPad instead.
Then there are those who might have upgraded their iPhone but are waiting until the next generation 4G iPhone comes out some time in the summer.
However, that doesn’t take away from the fact that Android is still doing remarkably well and is the only SmartPhone operating system whose market share grew since the previous quarter.
Really we’ll have to wait for the next and subsequent quarter’s figures to get a more realistic view and to see what impact the iPhone 4G or indeed other upcoming SmartPhones might have on the statistics.
