Apple Thoughts - News & Reviews on all things Apple

"Android is now larger than the iPhone on the world stage, analysts at Gartner said today. Google's phone platform jumped to 10.6 million phones sold, or enough to overtake the iPhone and take 17.2 percent of the market."

According to the Gartner Group, they "believe" Apple sold more than the 8.47 million shipped, but regardless it still put Apple at 14.2 percent of the market, sliding into fourth place. But at least both were increasing while all the others were decreasing, the biggest fall being Symbian from 51.0% last year to 41.2% as of Q2.

I am pretty sure that the limited supply of iPhone 4 didn't help things, and the fact that it continues today (as noted in this Apple Insider article) implies to me that the demand is there, they just need the product to fill it.

"Quarterly PC shipment estimates were released Wednesday, and Apple's share of the U.S. PC market grew 34 percent year over year to capture 8 percent of the total domestic market."

So says Gartner, however IDC says the growth was actually 8.3% and only shipped 1.130 million versus Gartners estimate of 1.39 million units. IDC also differs on the Market Share, estimating Apple's market share at 6.4% versus the 8% that Gartner gave them. I would have thought they would base their estimates on similar calculations, aren't they querying the same vendors? I have to admit my ignorance for how these numbers are calculated, any thoughts?

"Apple's (AAPL) iPhone was the fastest-growing smartphone of 2008, despite end-of-year sales that failed to maintain the blistering pace set in July with the launch of the iPhone 3G, Gartner researchers reported Wednesday."

I don't think anyone is really surprised about this after all the news about various sales figures and market share earlier in the year. Nokia still has the market share lead with 44%, down approximately 6% from 2007, and while their sales were a positive number, it was only .8% above what they sold in 2007. Pretty paltry when compared to the 245% that Apple achieved. The article goes on with various comparisons in many categories, interesting reading if you are into the facts and figures.