The third ecosystem. What are the odds? →
Speaking of Android (remember Android?), Horace Dediu posted this great graph at Asymco a few weeks ago that stuck with me:
What this shows is that while Android is indeed growing impressively, it doesn’t seem to be proportionally eating into the marketshare of other strong smartphone platforms. Rather, it’s taking over a dramatically increasing share of former non-smartphone customers.
Of course, you could reorder the graph slices to show something different, but this explanation reflects what I’ve seen anecdotally. More importantly, it explains some of Android’s real-world odditites, including why its unit marketshare isn’t even remotely proportional to its web-browsing share or paid-app sales: it’s selling a lot more to people who aren’t accustomed to doing much with their phones and don’t use them like pocket computers.