T3 2016 was not a great fiscal quarter for the Apple company, with sales of iPhone terminals falling compared to the same period last year, as we expected. The problem is that sales fell so much that the Apple company reached a lower market share than the one recorded in the same fiscal quarter of the previous year.
According to IDC, the market share of iOS in Q3 2016 reached 12.1%, 1.5 percent lower than that recorded in Q3 2015. The percentage is extremely close to that recorded in Q3 2014, before the release of the iPhone 6, the appearance of this smartphone, helping the iOS market share to grow to close to 20%.
Unfortunately for Apple, despite the hundreds of millions of iDevices sold annually, its market share will be much smaller than that of Android, forever. Google's operating system has a market share of 87.5% at the moment, both operating systems adding up to 99.6% of the smartphone market.
Considering that Apple alone produces and sells all iPhone terminals, and Android is adopted by thousands of manufacturers, the difference is as logical as possible. The Apple company never set out to achieve a very large market share in the smartphone segment, and this is as easy as possible to understand and see.
"Android's leadership of the global smartphone market looks unassailable at the moment. Its low-cost services and user-friendly software remain attractive to hardware makers, operators and consumers worldwide. However, several challenges remain for Google. The Android platform is getting overcrowded with hundreds of manufacturers, few Android device vendors make profits, and Google's new Pixel range is attacking its own hardware partners that made Android popular in the first place."
