Is Android Growth Leveling Out?

Possibly the biggest cause of arguments among smartphone fans comes from the inevitably differing market analyses posted each quarter. For example, during the second quarter of 2013, Kantar's Worldpanel ComTech report found that Android's U.S. market share rose to 51.5 percent of sales from 49.3 percent in the first quarter. Now, ComScore's latest MobiLens report has been released, painting a slightly different picture.

To be fair, ComScore measures the smartphone market based on total subscribers rather than sales per quarter, but these types of facts tend to be overlooked in comment sections.


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Regardless, of the 142 million smartphone owners in the U.S. during Q2 — totaling 59 percent mobile market penetration — Android made up 52 percent, amounting to 73.84 million Android devices in use. This figure is down from the prior quarter, during which ComScore reported that Android had 52.4 percent share of around 141 million users, totaling about 73.88 million Android users.

In other words, ComScore is reporting Android use is down in the U.S. for the first time, while Kantar suggests Android device sales have gone up.

In all honesty, this has been a long time coming. There's no way Android growth would go on unfettered to eventually reach 100 percent market share and anyone who believed that would happen — or somehow still believes that will happen — was deluding themselves. The iPhone continues to be a major force in the market — Apple is actually the top smartphone manufacturer in the U.S. according to ComScore with 40 percent OEM market share — and shows no signs of fading.

That said, it's possible — maybe even likely — iOS and Android will maintain their current smartphone market positions for the foreseeable future — which is bad news for BlackBerry and Windows Phone, which made up 4.4 percent and 3.1 percent of the market in Q2, respectively.