The iPhone is the smartphone of choice, right, the object of everybody’s desire? Wrong.
We’re a fickle bunch, it seems, and the latest figures from Nielsen show that Android phones are now more desirable.
between July and September last year, says Nielsen, 33 percent of US mobile consumers hankered after an iPhone, with 26 percent wanting an Android phone and 13 percent a Blackberry.
But things have changed. The numbers for January to March this year, show that Android is now the most desirable operating system at 31 percent, pipping Apple’s 30 percent. The Blackberry is down to 11 percent, and 20 percent say they don’t know what they want.
And when it comes to recent purchases, twice as many people are opting for Android as are choolsing the Apple iOS.
“Those dynamics are already translating into sales,” says the company. “Half of those surveyed in March 2011 who indicated they had purchased a smartphone in the past six months said they had chosen an Android device. A quarter of recent acquirers said they bought an iPhone and 15 percent said they had picked a Blackberry phone.”
Assuming the results aren’t just a statistical blip, they put the lie to the idea that people that can afford an iPhone do, with Android the poor relation. Nor can the traditional explanation for periodically stagnating iPhone sales – that’s there’s another one just around the corner – hold water. If this were the case, people would report being even more eager for a new iPhone.
No, it may just be that the smartphone has finally become a commodity item rather than a status symbol, with people simply wanting the model that’s going to suit them best – and that could prove something of a problem for Apple’s marketing department, to say the least.
