It should be noted this has almost nothing to do with Apple, but rather is the result of better competition among Android manufacturers splitting that market into smaller chunks. Android as a whole is still the #1 smartphone type in the world easily beating iOS. Previously Samsung was the #1 phone manufacturer, but stiff competition from other Android phone manufacturers helped drive their share of the market down low enough that Apple was able to take the #1 spot despite not increasing their market share.
this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2024
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Or in other words, Android's 2023 shipment share was 80%, while Apple had 20%. Title is clickbaity.
No it’s not, it’s completely accurate. It’s just that it only takes 20% to be #1 because we have that many options now.
Really wish we had a third viable option from a company who wasn’t evil. Year of the Linux phone anyone? 😇
It is almost impossible to penetrate the smartphone market at the moment, as both iOS and Android have the robust app ecosystem and polished OS experience and this is an extremely high bar to cross.
Just see what happened with Windows mobile or even Nokia, and mind you that was years ago. Now it should be even harder. I presume there is still a market for niche products based on Linux for example but nothing really competitive on the global scale.
Developing for iOS and Android is expensive and painful. Adding a third ecosystem to that would be more expensive and more painful.
We could probably come up with something Android adjacent that was able to run APKs. Hell I guess Amazon kind of tried that already.
Nobody wants to reinvent the wheel for free.
We could probably come up with something Android adjacent that was able to run APKs.
It's already there. Jolla's SailfishOS can run Android apps using their AlienDalvik compatibility layer. PostmarketOS can also run Android apps using Waydroid.
I had mentioned Firefox OS, now Capyloon. It’s basically PWAs, which would be so easy to make because they just use web technologies
I think the only one who could have actually competed was BlackBerry—properly managed. They already had the business market. If they had just kept pace with Android, they could have had a really solid footing.
Also, and to a far lesser extent, FirefoxOS. I could go on and on about how much better PWAs are for most apps. And because they’re so easy to make, they really could have grabbed a lot of the hobby market.
I really tried to make Linux phone work for me, but ultimately couldn't do it. There are just too many small annoyances currently to make it a viable replacement. For me the two biggest deal breakers were a total lack of any kind of NFC payment system, and even worse, horrendous battery life due to the phone not being able to enter low power state without disabling the ability to receive calls. The later is being worked on at least, but I know of absolutely no solutions to the former.
It seems Apple did get plus market share. 3.7%, but I get what you mean.
No they didn't, that 3.7% increase was just an increase in shipment share (aka unit sales) for 2023. It's not a representative of active users or actual market share.
Fair point
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The analyst group says this represents "a sort of shifting of power" in the smartphone market.
Other Android manufacturers are in the same boat, with low-volume halo products and high-volume cheap devices.
Apple's cheapest phone is the iPhone SE at $429, but that model doesn't sell well.
The point is that Android manufacturers usually win these market share charts by selling cheap and midrange phones, but Apple was able to take the top spot while existing only in the mid-to-premium phone space.
In 2023, Apple beat all these Android OEMs while selling dramatically more expensive products.
The IDC's Nabila Popal wraps up the numbers by saying, "Apple's ongoing success and resilience is in large part due to the increasing trend of premium devices, which now represent over 20% of the market, fueled by aggressive trade-in offers and interest-free financing plans."
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