Friday, June 18, 2010

The Battle for Market Share: iOS vs. Android Phones?

It was still almost a week before iPhone 4G was launched for the first time, but some people really wanted to be the first to get it, so they built tents near the store.


Video 1 The First Person in The Queueing Line

I think it's impressive. Even more impressively, in Q3 2010, Apple has managed to sell more smartphone than BlackBerry globally. Apple must has done it right. How about Android?

First of all, lets count the variants:
- iOS Phones (3): iPhone 4G 32GB, iPhone 4G 16 GB, iPhone 3Gs 8G
- Android Phones (a lot): Google Nexus One, Motorola phones, Sony Ericsson phones, Samsung phones, LG phones, HTC phones, and a lot more local-brand phones

There are more variants of Android phones compared to iOS phones and each variant has different features (including different customized Android OS installed in the phone). Different set of features will attract different market segment. See the example below:

Picture 1 Q4 Roadmap (Verizon)

The picture above shows that each product has its target customers or market segment. The market is divided into several segments. If each product is targeted to a certain segment, then Android will have an advantage over iOS phones since it has more variety offerings that will fill more segments in the market.