Charles Arthur on Q4 in the Phone Market

Charles Arthur:

Wow. I mean, truly wow. As it says, that’s never happened before. Android shipments have always increased from quarter to quarter, both for “Google Android” and AOSP, since the platform’s first phone. (Unlike pretty much every other research company, ABI also breaks its Android figures down into “Google Android” — ie Google Mobile Services certified, carrying all Google’s services — and “AOSP” — principally, China.)

Yet here ABI is, saying G-Android shipments fell by 11.9m, and AOSP by 0.47m, a total of 12.4m. That’s quite a lot more than a margin of error.

Part of this was Apple’s monster quarter for the iPhones 6 drawing Android switchers and feature-phone upgraders, and part, I think, is that Android is already so huge. Android has already grown such that it’s the de facto standard OS for all non-iPhone smartphones. But it’s interesting that Google Android handset sales fell while AOSP sales were close to flat.

★ Monday, 9 February 2015