We told you a couple of days ago that the Apple v. HTC lawsuit is all about Android; that the lawsuit is Apple’s response to Android’s skyrocketing popularity. We now have some data to back that up, and the guys at Cupertino are rightfully worried. Quantcast – a web analytics firm – recently released some juicy statistics. Quantcast tracks mobile web consumption by OS, and they’ve noticed that Android has started taking away market share from the iPhone.
Let’s dig in, shall we? The iPhone is clearly the market leader in Web consumption with 63.7% of the market. But that might not last for long, in February the iPhone lost 3.2% of its market share while both Android and RIM gained market share. Android has been gaining ground on the iPhone for more than a year now, but the growth has accelerated considerably over the last four months. For example, Android’s market share has grown 44% over the past quarter, and has doubled over the past year. All the while, the iPhone has lost 5% from last quarter and 10% from last year.
This data certainly doesn’t look good for the iPhone. If this trend continues, Android could surpass the iPhone by Fall of this year or early 2011. That can’t be good news for the Cupertino-based company. The iPhone is Apple’s main cash cow, and any decline in iPhone sales will be truly felt throughout the company. Apple must have seen this going on for the last six months and felt like they needed to do something quickly, rather than waiting for the new iPhone that they’ll announce in the Summer. ‘Cause by then, Android’s market share might be 30% and it could be too late to turn things around. I suggest we all go grab some popcorn, it’s certainly going to be interesting to see Apple scramble to try and slow down the Android avalanche that’s headed their way.
