If the March quarter is anything to believe, it appears that the iPhone may be making a bit of a comeback in the U.S. smartphone market in the upcoming months, both leading up to the iPhone 5 announcement and after it. According to a new study from Needham analyst Charlie Wolf, Apple has stolen back some market share from Android in the March quarter.
The iPhone has gained 12.3 percentage points for a total of 29.5 percent in the March quarter while Android’s market share has fallen from 52.4 percent to 49.5 percent.
Wolf has also made a bold prediction:
In our opinion, this is just the beginning of Android’s share loss in the U.S.,” Wolf writes. “The migration of subscribers to the iPhone on the Verizon network should accelerate this fall when Apple coordinates the launch of iPhone 5 on the GSM and CDMA networks. The iPhone could also launch on the Sprint and T-Mobile networks.
The iPhone 5 could certainly start tipping the scales again, but only time will tell how much of a difference we’ll see in the upcoming months. Another interesting thing I noticed from the IDC information used in Wolf’s analysis is that every company surveyed is a platform whereas Apple is listed as one device. For instance, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Nokia, and Android all make the listing, but all have more than one phone on the market, some from multiple vendors. The iPhone, however, stands alone as a sole device in a study comprised of companies with multiple devices.
I don’t care what the market share says at this point — that’s pretty damn impressive.
On another note
Surely Google’s probably a little bit worried about the decline, but holy crap, Nokia is in serious trouble. It’s been nothing but a holding pattern or a downward spiral for the company since 2007. From 2007 to 2008 it was a holding pattern with around 50 percent of the market, but then between 2008 and 2009 they dropped large. Then again, from 2008 until early 2010 they held steady at 40 percent of the market, but from March 2010 until today they’ve gone from 40 percent of the market to a little over 20% of the market.
Nokia better get it together soon, or they’re in for a world of hurt.
Article Via Fortune
