
The curious case of slowing US growth for Android - mjfern
http://www.asymco.com/2011/12/30/the-curious-case-of-slowing-us-growth-for-android/
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georgemcbay
If 91 million people already have smartphones (I don't know if that is true,
I'm taking the linked article at face value), shouldn't we expect growth to be
slowing?

There are 310 million people who live in the US and not everyone in that 310
million is a target customer for a smartphone (young kids, older folks, people
who just don't like cellphones).

Based on nothing but common sense it seems fairly obvious to me that growth
will continue but at a slowing pace -- the market isn't saturated, but much of
the low-hanging fruit is snatched up.

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schraeds
Why did you only account for the 310 million people in America while negating
the other 6.7 billion?

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murz
The article is about the slowing US growth for Android (US, not world).

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riahi
Data point: Last I checked, Verizon only offered 4 phones that do not require
a data plan. Everything else they offer is Android, BB, iOS, and maybe
WinPhone. Even their semismart Samsung phones require some $15 data plan.

At least when walking into a Verizon store, your perceived choice was android
or android; everything else is plopped into a corner. I wonder if they will be
successful in converting the remaining feature phone customers by simply
removing that option in the future.

Is the same thing happening on other carriers?

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mda
When someone comments about growth percentages, most of the time either he
doesn't know what he is talking about or is intentionally or subconsciously
interpreting numbers to misguide.

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foobarbazetc
Except that Asymco is one of the most trusted analysts in the mobile space.

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mda
Then he is probably of the second type. His analysis reeks of bias and has
glaring problems.

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yason
So, Android's market share and position has stabilized. No big deal.

As the Android phones get cheaper and cheaper, they will invade the low-end
mobile phone segment in masses and gain some further additional growth from
there. But only some.

The thing is, when nearly everyone, including non-computer-savvy people, has
an Android phone, it becomes an infrastructure in itself and in its own
ubiquity a platform never seen before. Just think what you can do with that if
you're a service provider.

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alanfalcon
Is the cost of owning an Android phone going to ever be significantly reduced
from where it is now? The data plans that are necessary to use Android as a
smartphone are surely the vast majority of the cost of ownership, and carriers
are going to charge what they're going to charge for those.

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bergie
There could be cheaper data plans (with lower bandwidth, capped amount of
transfers, whatever). I'm always astonished to hear how much plans cost in the
US.

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beatle
This is not coincidence.

1) the iPhone's availability on Sprint (Oct 2011)

2) HTC revenue dips 30% (November 2011)

