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back to article iPhones go on gobbling mobile sales

Punters picked up 417 million mobile phones in the third quarter of 2010 - a 35 per cent jump on the same three months of 2009. Smartphones accounted for 19.3 per cent of total sales - up 96 per cent on the same period of 2009 pushed by two relative newcomers to the market. Carolina Milanesi, research vice president at …

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  1. lurker
    Pint

    Android

    Given that the article clearly says that more Android phones were sold than iPhones, shouldn't the article title be 'Android Phones Go On Gobbling Mobile Sales'? Does Prophet Steve give you freebies for these articles or something?

    7 3
    1. ThomH
      Reply Icon

      Being extremely generous,

      I've decided that the author just thinks that, being a report about physical products sold, manufacturers are more interesting than software stacks.

      What effect Android is having on smartphones versus feature phones would be interesting. Forget the high end stuff where Android also plays and iOS plays exclusively, to what extent has Android put smartphones into the same price categories and so into the hands of the same consumers as feature phones?

      3 1
  2. The Bit Wrangler
    FAIL

    Quite so...

    Yup, that's the figure that leaps-out for me too. Apple's smart-phone share increase of nearly 100% in a year... impressive. Unless you compare it to the Android increase of 1439%

    If you want an Apple-based headline how about "Apple doubles Smart-phone sales (but loses market share)"?

    4 1
    1. Tigra 07
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      RE: The Bit Wrangler

      1439% Is an incredible increase and points out clearly where apple failed.

      They tried telling people what they want rather than listen to the customer.

      And there's also the people who don't want to spend £300+ for a phone (a massive market) and their sales contribute massively to android.

      If Windows Phone7 overtakes apple too (which it probably will) then it will condemn apple to repeat history of it's computers against Microsoft, and hopefully show apple and Steve Jobs that their locked down system doesn't suit anyone except their loyal customers, who buy anything they make.

      2 5
      1. Henry Blackman
        Reply Icon

        Clueless maths

        A 1439% increase isn't descriptive of the reality of the situation, given that Android platform phones sold poorly the previous quarter, any large number is meaningless.

        I'm sure Apple are very happy their performance; more people have bought their phones than last quarter. They have in fact, increased market share, jumped ahead of a rival and struggled to keep up with demand. Manufacturers making Android phones, with the exception of HTC, are yet to make a profit, and most of them are being sued by all the other major players.

        Windows Phone 7 has launched, with little fan fair, and certainly no queues for phones. From what I've seen, I'm impressed, but in the market, MS haven't exactly won the war so far with phones. They have never been the market leader, and it doesn't appear they will be for any length of time yet. I'm sure their new platform will do OK, but perhaps it's also doomed to the same result as MS have had with Zune. Hardly the success of the decade.

        2 3
        1. Tigra 07
          Reply Icon
          FAIL

          RE: Henry

          "They have in fact, increased market share, jumped ahead of a rival and struggled to keep up with demand."

          Lies, apple lost market share, they just lost less than other manufacturers.

          Android and WP7 on the other hand increased market share.

          Get your facts right if you want to argue, anyone can make up facts when they don't know what they're talking about

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      2. a_been
        Reply Icon
        FAIL

        History, try it

        In 1984 250,000 mac's where sold, all told by the end of that year apple had sold slightly less than 2.5 million computers in total. Commodor producer of the great C64 and the crap VIC-20 had sold more computers than apple. Meanwhile over 3.5 million PC were sold in the first year of the mac.

        Here's a clue since you havn't got one, you can't repeat something that never happened. AS for MS and it's Windows Phone7. Anyone buying that after Zune, Winmobil 6.5 and Kin, how are those promised upgrades working out, deserves to pay MS for the shafting the'll be getting.

        0 1
  3. Reg Sim
    Alert

    damm it, an I just got the bums rush blackberry.....

    Still at least I am not locked into iTunes :) ... only a 24m contract... Ahhhhhhh... DOOM!!!!

    I would be interested to see the uptake of contracts, in particular if people are genearly put off upgrading to a smart phone because all the contracts sux at the moment unless you want to splurg £100-200 to keep your contract leanth down.

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  4. Seanie Ryan
    Stop

    android ~= ios (not apple)

    to compare like with like, you would have to break android sales down to each manufacturer so as to be able to compare it to Apple.

    Remember Android is a free OS, not a make of phone.

    So how much did google make by giving it away?? One could say that android direct sales brought in a beautiful Zero in revenue. ( i know they make it up some bit in search/ads/apps etc )

    But I do actually want to know how many android devices each manufacturer shipped, would be good to know who has benefitted most from it.

    6 2
  5. Mark Aggleton
    WTF?

    White box

    Give me one - it's a phone, why do I need 3G?

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    1. chr0m4t1c
      Reply Icon

      No

      It's a mobile communication device (hub?), voice calls are just one of the functions these handsets provide.

      If it wasn't for the conference calls I have to attend as part of my job I'd hardly ever make voice calls on my smartphone at all, mostly it's used for e-mail, SMS and the crappy social networks that some of my friends use almost exclusively.

      If you only want to make phone calls, then buy the 99p Alcatel.

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  6. Ascylto
    Big Brother

    Come on ...

    "Apple sold 13.5m shiny handsets in the three months ..." You just can't leave it alone can you? That anti-Apple bias that makes you add the word "shiny".

    No wonder you don't get invited.

    Never, never give Apple it's due ... shaking up the stagnant mobile market.

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