It’s earnings week, and yesterday Apple held their quarterly earnings call. Apple has a tendency to rake in a ton of money and sell a ton of smartphones. That was the case, still, with their most recent quarter which was their first fiscal quarter of 2016. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook stated that they are seeing tons of Android users switching over to iOS. However, Apple lost market share in each market except for China in that quarter. So while iOS is seeing loads of switchers from Android, it appears that we are seeing loads of iOS switchers coming to Android. Perhaps more than Apple is seeing.
Most of the market share that was lost from Apple in different countries, went straight to Android (while Windows and “Other” did enjoy a few percentage points in some markets). In China, meanwhile, iOS saw a 5.6% jump while Android saw a 5.6% fall overall in their market share. Which isn’t surprising given how big Apple is in China. There’s no doubt here though, Android and iOS are the mobile operating systems to beat right now. And as long as the two stay competitive, we’ll see these jumps between the two continue to happen. In addition to that, having the two competitive means that Google and Apple will continue to innovate and then the consumers win, every time.
Android users have turned out to be pretty loyal to the platform. While they may not be as loyal to the OEM, they are loyal to Android as a whole. Which is why you’re seeing less and less users jumping ship to iOS (that and for many it means learning a brand new OS. As iOS is completely different from Android in almost every aspect). While market share likely has something to do with the success of the “cheaper” Android smartphones – especially in the US where Android holds a 59.1% market share compared to Apple’s 39.1% market share – Android is still the king when it comes to mobile operating systems. While Apple’s iPhone franchise is indeed starting to become weak, they are still putting up a big fight. Which is needed for Android to still remain competitive.