William Goodall's Blog Occasional mutterings

But there’s an Android approachingApple’s iPhone now accounts for 50 per cent of worldwide smartphone usage, according to a new report. But off in the distance, there’s an Android approaching.…[From iPhone conquers half the (smartphone) world]

Or perhaps receding? The mavens posit a two horse race between iPhone and Android but the handset makers like Android because it’s free as in beer rather than as in speech which doesn’t indicate an interest in investing in the expense of competing with the quality of the iPhone OS. Also I don’t see Microsoft giving up so easily, even if it means abandoning their licensing strategy and building their own Zune-phone.

Go figure, right? You get a relatively hot phone out onto more carriers, and just like that, sales increase. It ain’t rocket science, buster. As AT&T grins happily while enjoying a death grip on Apple’s cash cow here in the States, things are a lot more wide open for consumers across the pond. In both France and the UK, the iPhone has been given the all-clear to be sold on multiple carriers, and according to research from Bernstein, the “widening of the distribution has boosted Apple’s value market share to 32 percent in the latest quarter from 21 percent just three months earlier.” The notes also mention that Apple’s increase is coming at the expense of RIM, with over 600,000 iPhone handsets being sold during Q3 2009 in France alone. The point to all this madness? Oh, not much — just to tell Sir Jobs that he can count on quite a bit more dough should he decide to sell this elusive “iPhone” device on Verizon in the US of A.The end of exclusivity leading to big iPhone sales in Europe originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Permalink Electronista | MarketWatch | Email this | Comments [From The end of exclusivity leading to big iPhone sales in Europe]

Apple originally entered into exclusive carrier agreements in order to get the concessions they needed on controlling the iPhone experience. It seems unlikely any of these agreements are now necessary or will be renewed given these sales figures.

With the USA still the largest single iPhone market (over 40%) there is potential for a substantial boost in iPhone market share growth when the AT&T exclusivity arrangement ends in 2010.

eldavojohn writes “If you think the iPhone app store is the only mobile game store suffering an exodus, some game publishers claim Android’s app store isn’t much better, for a different reason — it doesn’t generate much revenue. In fact, French game developer Gameloft (which owes 13% of its profits to iPhone game sales), said, ‘We have significantly cut our investment in Android platform, just like… many others. It is not as neatly done as on the iPhone. Google has not been very good to entice customers to actually buy products. On Android nobody is making significant revenue. We are selling 400 times more games on iPhone than on Android.’ So the trade-off seems to be more sales but an annoying approval process, versus a lack of sales promotions and no annoyance around approval. It seems that those in it for money will opt for iPhone, and those in it for distribution will opt for Android. Or maybe someone will get it right one of these days?”Read more of this story at Slashdot. [From Some Claim Android App Store Worse Than iPhone’s]

A hint that Android isn’t going to overtake the iPhone as easily as some commentators have assumed.

Mostly posted to test the Shrook->ecto->WordPress workflow.