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back to article Android spanking iOS in world's BIGGEST mobile market

Android is absolutely creaming iOS in the world’s biggest mobile phone market, according to new stats from Beijing-based Analysys International, which estimate the Google platform now accounts for nearly 70 per cent of Chinese smartphones. The market watcher’s breakdown of smartphone sales by operating system for 2011 makes …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yes it's a shame - basically they want iOS / iPhone but it's relatively expensive so they go with Android - same happens everywhere and I suspect a LOT of the Android devices sold are just upgrades on the old candy bar style phone to a full screen smartphone.

    The problem for Android is these users probably buy very few apps - but the networks probably love it as they get to sell more expensive plans 'with data'.

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    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Reply Icon
      Meh

      "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

      Are you from a strategy boutique?

      They do NOT want iOS/iPhone, as apparent preferences show.

      They might *consider* "iOS / iPhone" if the price on the rebranded Foxconn gear was right (i.e. low enough to not drop out of the preferences list immediately). Time for price readjustment. Unfortunately, that would destroy the cachet of the item, right?

      19 3
      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

        Destroy the level of profitability more likely, and the total profit.

        Get over it, Android is a crap 2nd best product for nerds and people who cannot afford the quality APPL sells.

        2 30
        1. Miek
          Reply Icon
          Trollface

          Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

          "Android is a crap 2nd best product for nerds and people who cannot afford the quality APPL sells"

          You have no idea Coward, high end Android phones completely wipe the floor with the iPhone in terms of specification As a user who likes choice I chose Android over IOS having tried them both out. Hey I even gave Windross Phone a blow and it certainly blew.

          11 1
          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

            Actually I do, having owned (and crashed regularly) an Android (2.3) phone. I have an old iOS device as my main phone and a Nokia N9 for travelling. Did not even try the WinPhone yet.

            Clue: No one gives a flying fuck about specs. Repeat until you get it.

            Phones are consumer devices. Consumers care if they work and that they are well supported. Android support is appalling and it doesn't work that good anyway, based on my personal experience. iOS/APPL are light years ahead here - and this is what brings the punters back.

            Keep on with your nerdish obsession with specifications - consumers don't care and in the end you and your ilk will be irrelevant. Go back to kindergarten and call me in say 20 years, when you might have learned something.

            1 22
            1. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

              "Actually I do, having owned (and crashed regularly) an Android (2.3) phone."

              Actually, the evidence shows that iOS crashes more than Android:

              http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/06/ios_apps_crash_more/

              7 0
            2. Anonymous Coward
              Reply Icon
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

              Wow, 18:1, the ignorant masses are out in force today

              0 3
          2. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

            "Windross"... how very mature and impartial. I bet you had your preferences set before trying the different options.

            3 1
      2. a_been
        Reply Icon
        Trollface

        Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

        Android user : Androd is better

        iPhone user : LOL, sure, whatever you say

        Android user : it really is, IT really is, IT REALLY IS, admit it.

        iPhone user : look i don't give a fuck about your phone, now piss off

        Android user : RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGe, you must care

        Android user : well come on, this is really important to my self worth

        Android user : You only bought that to be cool

        Android user : Im an individual unlike you

        Andoid user : Androd outsells iPhone, thats important, admit it, come on it's important

        iPhone user : How's that OS update comming along

        Android user : RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGe

        4 8
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

          a_beenhole

          There FTFY.

          2 0
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

          [i]iPhone user : look i don't give a fuck about your phone, now piss off

          Android user : RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGe, you must care[i]

          That pretty much summarizes it, thanks. When we don't agree they start calling us "hipsters" and "baristas". It makes me want to buy another iPhone so I can be further different from them.

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          1. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

            I know, right? All I want to do is flash my Apple logo around and show everyone how important I am and these damn Droids keep coming and showing me that my phone is inferior. It's really annoying. And now they can use our beloved Instagram too! Is nothing sacred?

            6 1
          2. Anonymous Coward
            Reply Icon
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: "basically they want iOS / iPhone"

            iPhone user : look i don't give a fuck about your phone, now piss off

            FFS fanboys, get with the program. It's:

            1) ignore

            2) ridicule

            3) fight

            4) lose

            Apple's lawyers are already on step 3 against Android, while you fanboys seem to be stuck on steps 1-2.

            Not that any of it will make a difference to the final outcome of course.

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    2. Dazed and Confused
      Reply Icon

      @basically they want iOS / iPhone but it's relatively expensive

      But the big question is whether they'd still want an Apple if it was cheap as chips?

      Most people who want an Apple are buying into an "aspirational" product. If it was really cheap then it wouldn't be aspirational. They want to be seen with an expensive product, if everyone could afford one, there would be no point.

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      1. RegisterThis
        Reply Icon
        Thumb Up

        Re: @basically they want iOS / iPhone but it's relatively expensive

        ... and "Dazed and Confused" hits the nail on the head: (1) segmentation applies to ANY product (target price, demographics etc.) and (2) varies from culture to culture. There will never be a universal product that dominates all others in all markets. Believe it or not, where I live, Blackberry is still the hottest thing because it = corporate = hierarchy = POWER = made it = status! In contrast, Apple = Cool Kid (assumed you grow out of it with a Blackberry) and Android = every-man-and-his-dog "I got a new <insert manufacturer of choice> phone" evolution from Feature- to Smart-phone.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Usual Apple FUD.

      What's more likely is the Chinese market has less hipsters/baristas trying to impress, that just want a functional smartphone at the right price.

      The myth that Android is an inferior iPhone, as you try and make out, is just that - A myth. The high end Androids cost less than Iphone, but totally outclass it in every area, not just proper multitasking, better screens, better camera, better battery life, USB and SD card support, browsable filesystems, better file format support (not just proprietary Apple codecs like Quicktime), desktop widgets so you don't have to open apps to see the weather and news etc etc etc....

      Really if there is ANYONE is 2012 that thinks iOS is still superior to Android needs to look at this:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMiY1kSTHZw

      32 6
      1. JDX Gold badge
        Reply Icon

        The high end Androids cost less than Iphone

        That's utterly untrue.

        And seriously, anyone who evangelises an operating system and isn't affiliated with the company making it really should get out more.

        5 14
        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The high end Androids cost less than Iphone

          JDX: "That's utterly untrue."

          HTC One X, 32GB: £480 (SIM free, CPW)

          iPhone 4S, 32GB: £599 (SIM free, CPW)

          Last time I checked 480 < 599.

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      2. DrXym
        Reply Icon

        Re: Usual Apple FUD.

        "Really if there is ANYONE is 2012 that thinks iOS is still superior to Android needs to look at this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMiY1kSTHZw"

        I think that video makes a lot of reasonable points. The lack of a back button in iPhone really does hurt it since so many apps need back functionality. Anyone who has used Android for a while knows it brings a level of consistency of behaviour.

        The lack of customization really hurts the iPhone. I don't go mad with widgets on my Android device but I've still got a clock and weather app on the front page, and shortcuts to wifi settings amongst other things. It's just so much more convenient than playing "hunt the setting".

        I don't think any of this has a strong bearing on why Android is winning in China. More likely is the OS is available on dozens of handsets at various pricepoints so consumers can pick a phone which suits their tastes and budgets.

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        1. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          FAIL

          Usual fandroid FUD.

          "...The lack of customization really hurts the iPhone... I've still got a clock and weather app on the front page, and shortcuts to wifi settings amongst other things. It's just so much more convenient than playing "hunt the setting"..."

          Jailbreak iPhone. Install the excellent SBSettings and get toggles to turn on/off; WiFi, 3G, data, Aeroplane mode, Location Services [GPS], AFP [file-Apple sharing], firewall, screen rotation lock, SSH and bluetooth [as well as all the other goodies in the Notifications panel], just by swiping down from the menubar on any screen.

          The iPhone is as customiseable as you want it to be. OK. you're going to need to jailbreak it first, but anyone geeky enough to care about that kind of level of customisation will be jailbreaking anyway.

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          1. DrXym
            Reply Icon

            Re: Usual fandroid FUD.

            "Jailbreak iPhone."

            I shouldn't have to do this to any device to make it work the way it should work out of the box.

            9 1
            1. Sean Timarco Baggaley
              Reply Icon

              Re: Usual fandroid FUD.

              "I shouldn't have to do this to any device to make it work the way it should work out of the box."

              So why the blazes do you morons keep blathering on about "rooting" your precious OS and overwriting it with "modded" ROMs and other firmware?

              Either the ability to customise your precious slab is important, or it isn't. Which is it?

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              1. Anonymous Coward
                Reply Icon
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Usual fandroid FUD.

                You don't need to root an Android to 'customise' it with widgets, different browsers, different launchers etc.

                Do try to keep up Baggaley.

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              2. Anonymous Coward
                Reply Icon
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Usual fandroid FUD.

                I think the point is, when your Android is warranty and supported with updates from the manufacturer (the big OHA partners have all signed up to at least 18months OS updates), but when your manufacturer has moved on, you can unlock the bootloader and load cyanogen (or whatever).

                There are few benefits to rooting under warranty phones, perhaps hosts based advert blocking,

                1 0
        2. Anonymous Coward
          Reply Icon
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Usual Apple FUD.

          The back button is crap as it does different things in different apps and even does different things in the same app at times. That is just retarded. As for the clock/weather widgets, the iphone has the time at the top of the screen and if you can read that you can look up and see what the weather is.

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    4. Ilgaz
      Reply Icon

      Check top android software

      While it has some lack of crediting problem (originates to oss code) , there is massively popular Go launcher and an entire suite of applications branded/ developed by them.

      It is made in China and coded by Chinese.

      There is no way you are replacing system shell on ios or replacing core functions like sms reading. That is unless you manage to convince user to "jail break".

      Android fits perfectly to fill symbian gap created by Nokia. That is where the popularity comes from.

      1 0
  2. Silverburn
    Facepalm

    Fundamental issues

    I mean...no working 3G? C'mon...They should just re-tool the original iphone and sell it for half/third of the price of the 3G counterparts.

    I'm surprised they even managed to sell as many as they have.

    4 0
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This bodes well considering your previous story "Chinese app stores host malicious apps".

    (Google Play store doesn’t support paid apps in China, hence the store fragmentation)

    1 1
    1. Ilgaz
      Reply Icon

      Amazing really

      Don't you want to meet with that guy who dare to ignore 3 billion potential customers and sellers on android market?

      India, China, Russia, Turkey, east Europe can neither buy or sell there.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Amazing really

        Actually in Turkey you can buy apps from Google Market / Google Play. Since last February / early March, I believe.

        No books, movies and music yet AFAIK.

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  4. Jeebus

    70% market share is impressive, especially given the Chinese and their want to sell body parts for Apple products, at least many of the populace aren't quite as moronic.

    Not that there is much difference between selling body parts and the average Apple owner, I'm not implying those who don't are better and/or smarter.

    4 3
  5. Anonymous Coward
    Linux

    LINUX

    ..rulez !

    6 2
  6. Muckminded

    And open source software

    gets downloaded more frequently than software that is paid for. Which means it is better.

    3 1
  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What did you expect?

    For every 1 person that must buy an iPhone to wave it around in public as a status symbol, there will be 99 that want a smartphone to USE, and the fact is, whilst there are iPhone beating Android at the high end, there are entry level Android smartphones that do much the same at the affordable entry level too.

    Whilst I have a very decent Android handset that wipes the floor with iPhones, I am a niche Android owner, as most owners will opt for entry to mid level handsets.

    There is only 1 iPhone for 1 budget, there is an Android handset for EVERY budget.

    20 3
    1. chr0m4t1c
      Reply Icon

      Re: What did you expect?

      >There is only 1 iPhone for 1 budget, there is an Android handset for EVERY budget.

      That's kind of what I took from this story, most markets show a skew in figures towards the lower price end of the spectrum, largely irrespective of the relative merits of the various products on offer, particularly in economically uncertain times when people are more likely to be price concious.

      In other surprising news, Ford sell more cars than Aston Martin.

      I'd like to see a breakdown of the figures into price-points to see if this is a valid conclusion, though.

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  8. DZ-Jay

    Does it really matter?

    If Apple are making a lot of money, much more so than Google is from Android, what do they care about market share?

    -dZ.

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    1. JDX Gold badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Does it really matter?

      Does Google make money from Android at all - do they charge a small licensing fee? Or does paying licensing to MS mean the more Android succeeds, the more Google loses - is the patent licensing only in the USA?

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      1. Miek
        Reply Icon
        Linux

        Re: Does it really matter?

        There's nothing wrong with licensing technology and paying a rival firm to use their technology. It's quite common you know.

        Google is not "losing" when manufacturers pay Microsoft to use their technology, I see this as Google winning as basically $MS has lost a handset sale regardless of earning a royalty from their patents.

        "is the patent licensing only in the USA?" -- No!

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    2. The Baron
      Reply Icon
      Happy

      Re: Does it really matter?

      I really don't understand the downvotes on this post. It seems to make the important point that people are missing - viz. that Apple's bank balance says that it doesn't give a toss about market share, but concerns itself with profit. We can infer, and indeed El Reg has discussed many times, that Google is probably not looking to profit directly from phone hardware sales, but is indirectly after advertising revenue and behavioural data that feeds into its existing business model, and that larger numbers feed this model better.

      So Apple is happy making profit and Google is happy selling lots of phones. Everyone's happy! Isn't that nice? Smiley face icon.

      Well, maybe WP7 isn't happy...

      3 0
      1. Craigness
        Reply Icon
        WTF?

        Re: Does it really matter?

        If Apple's current bank balance means they don't need to give a toss about selling more phones than they already do (and the apps, music and other content that follows), then at what point will they decide they've got enough money and just stop selling phones all together? I suspect Apple very much does care about selling as many phones as it can. If someone else is selling phones then Apple is not.

        5 0
    3. Charlie Clark Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Does it really matter?

      Yes, it matters. Find me a business owner who doesn't want more market share no matter how high their margins are. Even for a premium product like Apples market share is important for the attendant eco-system. This used to be Apple's problem pre x86 OS X as it was considered too expensive to develop the software for the market, though there were notable exceptions. The same could happen to Apple in China with phones. Gone are the days where, where the US leads everyone else follows.

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      1. Sean Timarco Baggaley
        Reply Icon

        Re: Does it really matter?

        "Yes, it matters. Find me a business owner who doesn't want more market share no matter how high their margins are."

        Chanel? Gucci? Bose? Bang & Olufsen? Harrods?

        I could go on. The fact remains, however, that market share does not equate directly to profit. Margins are how you make the money, not quantity alone.

        As for the original article, its headline would have been better phrased as: "Financially challenged customers content to buy cheap knock-offs instead of real thing shock!"

        This is hardly news. Street hawkers and spammers wouldn't still be offering fake Rolexes for sale after all these years unless somebody was buying them, so this phenomenon is hardly unique to the Chinese.

        Apple aren't worried about Android mopping up the plebs. They're not interested in selling to people with little or no money.

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  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    All this irrational iOS hatred is rather odd,

    The iPhone is a beautiful product that revolutionised a whole industry.

    But it's a tad expensive.

    I chose it because I like it a bit more than Android. Isn't that enough?

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    1. pepper
      Reply Icon
      Mushroom

      Liking a product should be enough really. I dont quite get the feverish flamewars instigated by both sides(IOS, Android). Its just a operating system and both are capable of pretty much the same thing.

      Then again, I have a Nokia N900(Maemo) and toyed with both Android and IOS phones. None of them strike me as very different from eachother, each and everyone of them does what they need to do and all of them are fine OS's. Yes even Maemo is quite good.

      1 0
      1. Miek
        Reply Icon
        Linux

        "Its just a operating system and both are capable of pretty much the same thing" , here here. Let the flame-wars die. You forgot to mention the WinPho camp who are also ardent defenders of their OS ecosystem.

        "Yes even Maemo is quite good." -- I tried Maemo on my Nokia n810 and it was okay, not brilliant and at that time it was no where near good enough to use as an actual phone, perhaps it has improved somewhat since then.

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        1. pepper
          Reply Icon

          Miek: I forgot about the windows phone. Same goes for that, its a smartphone and does smartphone things. My mother and brother own a phone with windows 7(mobile?) and its alright. The interface feels a bit clunky if not used to it compared to IOS and Android but I suppose its something you need to get used too.

          Maemo works fine for me as a actual phone, current version is 5 but I never tried any other, it might have been crap before. Although my demands arent sky high, a webbrowser(default, opera and firefox), a way to contact people(mail, calling, sms etc). Thats pretty much it. Other then that its quite easy to program for(C/C++) and nice to use. Then again, its probably just me that likes it, and its more of a hackers phone then anything else(FM transmitter, IR transmitter, TV out).

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          1. pepper
            Reply Icon

            @graham(didnt see your post when typing the previous one): I use Opera on Maemo, its quite nice and made me actually try it on my computer. The only thing that doesnt work are Flash pages and some other websites, which was a dealbreaker on my PC but hasnt given me problems on the phone.

            You could also try a firefox build, not quite sure what the name was though.

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      3. Graham Dawson Silver badge
        Reply Icon

        @pepper

        Maemo is quite good, yes, but I do wish it had a more reliable browser and e-mail client. Every browser I've tried has been either bloated, broken or, in the case of the default, both.

        That said, my gripe is somewhat tempered by the fact that I can compile code on the phone and install dosbox. :D

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      @All this irrational iOS hatred is rather odd

      These kids think hating Apple is a hip thing.

      They buy Android and keep telling us that it is much better, it's like a mantra. Somehow so far their arguments failed to convince me (and I've had iPhones and Android phones).

      Meanwhile, in China (and in most parts of the planet) most people want more expensive things but have to settle for cheaper ones. What's the problem?

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