[Chicago777Guy]

Android owns 80% of worldwide market and by next year at this pace it will be above 90%....Very difficult for anyone to beat something that Google is giving for free...IOS share has fallen from 16 to 13 % and would go below 10 % most likely by next year unless thier cheap iphone is really cheap...
So what's the relevance of Blackberries market share versus windows vs IOS???

At the end they should all be valued at the profits they are generating? Just like Apple is being valued for 50% of smartphone profits... Market share is either mis leading or its ir-relevant figure to look at...Thoughts?

Posted via CB10

[bekkay]

Marketshare is relevant in the sense you have a large enough number of active devices to make developers and content providers interested in your platform.

[Troy Tiscareno]

Google makes virtually nothing when an Android phone sells. That's absolutely true, and for someone used to Apple's model of making big margins off of device sales, that seems crazy.

BUT... Remember that Google's primary business is ADVERTISING, and with Android + Apple = >90% of the market, and given that Google has Google Apps on both platforms (and those Google apps are HEAVILY used on iOS, make no mistake; many iOS users feel that Google's apps are the best apps available for iOS), that means Google has a virtual lock on mobile advertising.

Plus, with 80% marketshare worldwide, Google will be making billions of dollars a year, indefinitely, from app and media sales in its ecosystem. That's what's really putting the squeeze on Apple (much less Microsoft and BB). Everytime someone rents a movie or TV episode, buys a book, buys music (or subscribes to All Access for streaming music), or buys an app, Google gets paid. Heck, Google is even getting paid from most FREE apps, because most of them use Google Ads to monetize the app.

So, yes, marketshare is HUGELY relevant to Apple and Google.

But even more importantly, marketshare is EVERYTHING to an app developer. When a dev can upload his app, and get thousands, or tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads, his earning potential is exponential, compared to getting only dozens or hundreds of downloads. That's why devs focus on the big platforms; the smaller ones just aren't profitable, or not profitable enough, for most devs.

[Chicago777Guy]

Good points Troy...so how does it work for everyone else including Apple when Android crosses 90 percent of market share next year and probably 95 % share in 2 years???
Is it going to be like Windows OS on Desktop situation?

Posted via CB10

[Troy Tiscareno]

It's going to be VERY MUCH like Windows on the desktop, yes. That much was obvious about 2 years after Android was released: it was going to be a re-hash of Apple vs. Microsoft, with Apple having a high-end, relatively closed, small (but very profitable) userbase, vs Microsoft (or in this case Android) being the open platform that is widely supported across all types of hardware, and has the vast majority of the market. Profits per phone may be less, but there will be so many more of them that it won't matter.

Apple is really only doing REALLY well in the US, where they have about 48% of the market, vs. about 51% for Android, but you also need to remember that a big reason for that is iPads vs. Android tablets, which is a much newer race, yet is included in those numbers. Apple still has the lead in the tablet market in overall installed base, but just as we've seen with phones, that's going to get eroded just as well. Android is already seeing huge increases in tablet sales, and they're still growing.

There is simply not room in the market for 4 OSs and 4 complete ecosystems, and for that matter, there may well not be room for more than 2, which is exactly what we saw with desktops. Sure, there were other OSs (free versions of Linux, OS/2, BeOS), but none ever had any significant sales or marketshare once the Windows & MacOS dominance was established. That same pattern is happening with Android & iOS.

Windows Phone *may* survive, and if so, it will be a "business phone" for many in the US, to access Office365, much as BBs were used to access office emails, but I'm not sure it will ever have the app, media, or services ecosystem to be a real competitor to Android and iOS, because I don't see it ever getting enough marketshare to sustain itself. Microsoft can throw money at it and keep it alive for a few years, but that's not the same as making it truly successful. I equate WP with OS/2 Warp. It had its fanboys, and it had some sales for a while, but it was never enough to make any real profits, and eventually, the plug was pulled.

[The Aficionado]

From data I've seen, android developers make the least money on average

I guess those few at the top are making the most money of any platform, but the average android dev is basically doing it for free. It has to do with the app store being so competitive, and a lot of things are available for free that you need to pay for on bb10

Posted via CB10

[garnok]

From data I've seen, android developers make the least money on average

I guess those few at the top are making the most money of any platform, but the average android dev is basically doing it for free. It has to do with the app store being so competitive, and a lot of things are available for free that you need to pay for on bb10

Posted via CB10

average revenue per user it's not important if you have more than 500 million active user...Android have 100x user base than BB10. even if android average users only spend money 10% than BB10 user spend to buying apps . it still have a huge difference...for developers total revenue.

that is why many BB10 apps pricier than android/ios apps

[Troy Tiscareno]

From data I've seen, android developers make the least money on average

Android currently has 800,000,000+ active users.
BB10 currently has about 4,000,000.
It takes less than 4 days to activate the number of Android devices to equal BB10's entire installed base (1.2M Android devices activated daily).

One of the devs in the forum who has ported his Android app to BB World reports making about $50 a month from one of his apps on BB World, while the same app makes $3000 a month on Android. These are relatively small, simple apps, and he was able to port the Android app over for relatively little work compared to re-coding it in Cascades from scratch, but even still, his revenue potential is far, far less on BB World.

That's what developers have to look at, not "average dollar per user".

[Hilman76]

^ Android is currently activating 1.5 million devices a day right now.

[sigint99]

Android's installed base will peak and then decline at some point. The momentum cannot last forever given that the mobile computing market has completely different dynamics to the PC market. No one player will dominate indefinitely like MIcrosoft did with their bullying and standover tactics with OEMs.

[DJM626]

^ Android is currently activating 1.5 million devices a day right now.

Well they won't be activating one for me anytime soon

[garnok]

Android's installed base will peak and then decline at some point. The momentum cannot last forever given that the mobile computing market has completely different dynamics to the PC market. No one player will dominate indefinitely like MIcrosoft did with their bullying and standover tactics with OEMs.

are you sure ? yes android will peak and decline. but it seems same thing will happen like the past, android have already capture 90% market share, iOS market share declining right now , WP8 market share increase but very slow, BB10 phone sales not good.

one thing different i think mobile market will have 3 top players : Android, iOS, Windows Phone . i'm not counting BB because to be honest it's hard for Blackberry to compete with other competitors while BB only have limited resource.

[ranzabar]

Only relevant to the market you're sharing.

I'm of the opinion that BlackBerry should carve out the market of people that prefer keypad phones like the Q series. Completely drop the Z series. It can't possible compete for Apple-droid market share, but it absolutely OWNS the keypad market. And will if they are smart (so far they haven't been).

[beamolite]

are you sure ? yes android will peak and decline. but it seems same thing will happen like the past, android have already capture 90% market share, iOS market share declining right now , WP8 market share increase but very slow, BB10 phone sales not good.

one thing different i think mobile market will have 3 top players : Android, iOS, Windows Phone . i'm not counting BB because to be honest it's hard for Blackberry to compete with other competitors while BB only have limited resource.

For BlackBerry's sake I hope you are wrong. If Google Play would open up to BlackBerry, I think that would help a lot.

[BitPusher2600]

Google makes virtually nothing when an Android phone sells. That's absolutely true, and for someone used to Apple's model of making big margins off of device sales, that seems crazy.

BUT... Remember that Google's primary business is ADVERTISING, and with Android + Apple = >90% of the market, and given that Google has Google Apps on both platforms (and those Google apps are HEAVILY used on iOS, make no mistake; many iOS users feel that Google's apps are the best apps available for iOS), that means Google has a virtual lock on mobile advertising.

Plus, with 80% marketshare worldwide, Google will be making billions of dollars a year, indefinitely, from app and media sales in its ecosystem. That's what's really putting the squeeze on Apple (much less Microsoft and BB). Everytime someone rents a movie or TV episode, buys a book, buys music (or subscribes to All Access for streaming music), or buys an app, Google gets paid. Heck, Google is even getting paid from most FREE apps, because most of them use Google Ads to monetize the app.

So, yes, marketshare is HUGELY relevant to Apple and Google.

But even more importantly, marketshare is EVERYTHING to an app developer. When a dev can upload his app, and get thousands, or tens or hundreds of thousands of downloads, his earning potential is exponential, compared to getting only dozens or hundreds of downloads. That's why devs focus on the big platforms; the smaller ones just aren't profitable, or not profitable enough, for most devs.

Absolutely correct. That fact of life is what is killing us most. Hopefully this "unity" platform will fix that.