Are We Starting To See A Plateau In Android Market Share Growth?

Nielsen has released their U.S. smartphone market research for April, and it shows Android still in the lead with 36% share out of all smartphone OSes.  iOS is second with 26%, followed by BlackBerry at 23% and Windows (combination of Windows Mobile and WIndows Phone 7) at 10%. But Android has remained at the same 36% mark for the past three months, leading some to believe that the incredible growth of Android has finally slowed down.

I’m not so sure though…

Android’s explosion in market share is nothing short of amazing.  Less than three years after the very first Android phone (the HTC Dream) was released on September 23, 2008, Android captured 36% of the US market share, and is currently the top selling mobile os worldwide.  It was fueled by a couple of factors. First, it was launched in the midst of the smart phone explosion itself. All major US Carriers were in the process of moving from a call usage based pricing model to a data usage one. And with AT&T having a monopoly on the iPhone at the time, competitors turned to Android for their smart phone offers.  By the beginning of 2010, there were more smart phones being offered than “dumb” phones, and in most cases, those smart phones were predominately Android.  Now, halfway into 2011, we have reached a point where the majority of cell owners we are going to switch to smart phones have.  With the switch over slowing down, Android’s growth in the market share is slowing down as a result.  If this was the only contributing factor to Android’s growth, then the pundits would be right, and the growth has indeed hit a plateau.

But the other factor that helped fuel Android’s growth was the decline in RIM.  RIM’s Blackberry series was the clear loser as Android gobbled up businesses who were breaking free of the RIM platform.  This switchover will take longer, as business tend to have more invested in their IT infrastructure, making change slower.  This will continue well into the next couple of years.  RIM has made an attempt to stop the hemorrhaging with its Playbook tablet offering, but it may be too little, too late, leaving iOS and Android to fight over their 20% of the market.

It is also important to note that this is a report of smart phone market share, and not mobile OS market share.  Apple is still winning that fight, thanks to the iPad.  Some studies include the iPod touch here as well because it technically runs the same OS as the iPhone.