Google's Android OS is gaining an incredible amount of momentum and as a result 200,000 phones are being sold every day. Google CEO Eric Schmidt noted that this was double the 100,000 units sold per day just two months ago. “Android is not just phenomenal but incredibly phenomenal in its growth rate.”
Google's announcement follows an announcement from Nielsen earlier this week that showed, for the first time, that people in the U.S. bought more Android phones than iPhones.
Credit this to the wide variety of Android powered devices from different makers. Users today can get a touch-screen phones, slide-out keyboards, hybrid-phones as well as the large-screen super smartphones like the Motorola Droid X and the Samsung Galaxy S Vibrant.
The iPhone is still a popular smartphone even if it is really only one model, made by one manufacturer and in the US sold under one exclusive carrier AT&T.
By 2012, Android will be used in 75 million smartphones, up from 5 million in 2009, says market intelligence analysis firm iSuppli. IOS will be in 62 million phones in 2012, up from 25 million in 2009.
That means in two years, Android will possibly have a 19.4 percent market share worldwide among smartphone operating systems, up from 2.7 percent in 2009. That's tremendous growth in a highly profitable yet competitive market.
Apple’s iOS for the iPhone will see its share go up to 15.9 percent in 2012 from 13.8 percent in 2009, explained iSuppli.
We've seen an explosion of Android handsets in Canada in just the past few months and many of them are compelling options and rival the iPhone in many areas of functionality, they are also generally cheaper and the large selection of models and carriers means that users can obtain them quite easily without having to deal with long lines and problems of scarcity.
Smartphone sales statistics between 2009 and 2010from Gartner