Data Monday: iPhone Closing the Gap

by January 23, 2012

Google's Android operating system is seeing 700,000 activations a day. Despite this meteoric growth, Apple's iPhone has been gaining on Android in recent smartphone sales in the United States.

  • According to the NPD Group, Apple's iOS moved up to 43% of U.S. smartphone sales in October and November, compared with 26% in the third quarter. Meanwhile, Android’s share of U.S. smartphone sales dropped from a high of 60% in the third quarter to 47% in October and November. NPD data comes from large online surveys weighted to match US demographics and asks recent smartphone buyers what they bought. (source).
  • NPD said that Apple held the top three spots in device sales with the iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 and iPhone 3GS. (source).
  • According to Nielsen, Apple's iOS rose to 46.9% of new U.S. smartphone sales in December up from 25.1% in October. Android's share fell from 61.6% in October to 46.9% in December. Nielsen's data comes from U.S. surveys of recent mobile device acquirers. (source)
  • According to Nielsen, the launch of Apple’s iPhone 4S had an enormous impact. 57% of new iPhone owners surveyed in December said they got an iPhone 4S. (source)