News - Tesco says Android is outselling iPhone

[HEXUS]

On its own network, at least.

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[miniyazz]

Apple fanboys upgrading their iPhone isn't going to affect Android (or Apple) market share at all

[Funkstar]

It won't effect market share, but it will have an impact on the proportion of sales that are iPhone for a few months.

[spoon_]

And Tesco is the biggest on the market with their phone sales - yeah right.

We can surely trust them figures, what's the overall picture please?

[Spud1]

The thing is, these figures (and others) may show that the android platform is outselling the iPhone 4 at the moment, but what does that really show? Nothing useful. You'd actually expect that in a true competitive marketplace.

It's comparing a platform with hundreds of devices, against a single device, and that alone speaks volumes.

No one bothers to compare sales figures like for like because iPhone will win every time, yet any other comparison is distorting the facts entirely.

[directhex]

The thing is, these figures (and others) may show that the android platform is outselling the iPhone 4 at the moment, but what does that really show? Nothing useful. You'd actually expect that in a true competitive marketplace.

It's comparing a platform with hundreds of devices, against a single device, and that alone speaks volumes.

No one bothers to compare sales figures like for like because iPhone will win every time, yet any other comparison is distorting the facts entirely.

From a platform perspective, it's completely irrelevant. Doesn't matter if Apple has 1 device or 100, it matters whether if I develop an app for iOS, I reach X users or 100 * X.

You don't write apps for the Desire and the Optimus and the Cliq and the Hero and the Wildfire, you write them for Android. And as a result, all the users benefit.

We're talking smartphones. The platform is what matters, not the device.

[crossy]

The thing is, these figures (and others) may show that the android platform is outselling the iPhone 4 at the moment, but what does that really show? Nothing useful. You'd actually expect that in a true competitive marketplace.

It's comparing a platform with hundreds of devices, against a single device, and that alone speaks volumes.

No one bothers to compare sales figures like for like because iPhone will win every time, yet any other comparison is distorting the facts entirely.

Ignoring the blatant fanboy-ism in the quotes above, (at the risk of being rude, this wasn't one of your better posts - imho), there's a couple of inconsistencies here. Apple have chosen to have two devices available (don't forget the 3GS - which some folks I know have actually traded their iP4 in for because it's a better device). If they choose to be "exclusive" then they have to accept that in some respects that this will put them at a disadvantage. I'm sure if they were farsighted enough to allow it to be OEM'd then they'd gain more market share...

That "No one bothers ..." stuff is just a crock. Sure, if you compare (for example) HTC's 'droid sales to Apple's iPhone (3GS+4) then I guess Apple will win, (which is what I assume you mean by "like for like"). This does NOT mean that Apple is selling more on their platform, because the typical 'droid buyer is free to choose a vendor that suits them - more often than not the buying decision is "I want an Android phone, now which one suits me best". I realise that the concept of "choice" may be unsettling for an iOS acolyte - go lie down in a quiet, dark room somewhere to recover ...

Far better to compare platform sales - so that's iOS v's Android (excluding tablets in both cases). In which case most folks seem to agree that Android is "winning" ... for the moment. Next year we could see that WP7 overtakes it ... who knows what the market will look like in 12 months? iPhone5 may be a tour-de-force, SonyEricsson may stop dropping their customers like lepers when a new device comes out, cheap Android tablets may not be crappy, iPad drones may finally stfu, ...

Getting back to the article, I'm not surprised that Tesco are saying this. I would assume that anyone buying a phone with their breakfast cereal is going to be VERY price concious, in which case I'm willing to bet that it's the older or smaller Android phones that are making the majority of their sales. I think I'll have a look what they've got to offer closer to the end of my current Three contract.

[directhex]

It's fairly simple. Tesco Mobile prices:

PAYG LG Optimus GT540: £89.97
PAYG Samsung i5500: £109
PAYG X10 Mini Pro: £149.97
PAYG HTC Wildfire: £179.97

PAYG iPhone 3GS 32GB: £549
PAYG iPhone 3GS 8GB: £396

Who buys contract phones from Tesco?

[Spud1]

To a degree the platform argument is right - however its not quite that simple as you can't write your app once for android and expect it to work everywhere - that simply doesn't hold true. You can write it for the top 10% of android devices and it will, but it won't work everywhere, due to the vast difference in specs (particuclarly in screen size and performance).

If talking pure revenue then yes, you may well reach more users by developing for android, and possibly even make more money (as other recent studies have shown), but that's not quite the same thing if you don't have a good user experience on every device. I will argue to the death that if you are writing a quality application you will customise it for each individual device that you are deploying to, or at the very least each /class/ of device.

My earlier post was much more about the device sales comparison rather than platform - as i've already said I don't think its a fair comparison. It does read very fanboy like I concede that, but I stand by the point that its not fair to effectively compare a single device (3GS sales make up such a tiny % of sales that its irrelvent) against hundreds of devices, implying that its a like for like comparison. I may own an iPhone 4 at the moment but come august when my contract is up, i'm strongly considering a HTC alternative..simply as they make great hardware, and Sense makes up for the (in my opinion poor) android stock UI.

Wasn't trying to get into an "android vs iphone, which is better" debate..been had too many times and its personal preference.

[spoon_]

To a degree the platform argument is right - however its not quite that simple as you can't write your app once for android and expect it to work everywhere - that simply doesn't hold true. You can write it for the top 10% of android devices and it will, but it won't work everywhere, due to the vast difference in specs (particuclarly in screen size and performance).

To add to this, you would need to settle on *droid version 1.5 or something lower even to be able to develop for every device across the board out there since people are getting stuffed very nicely with inability to upgrade their precious devices to the latest version. And no, Public Joe will not go and start downloading custom sh!t to be able to keep up with Google releases because Samsung/Sony Ericsson and bunch of others are telling their customer population to go and screw themselves or buy a new shiny device with the latest OS version + a new contract.

[crossy]

To a degree the platform argument is right - however its not quite that simple as you can't write your app once for android and expect it to work everywhere - that simply doesn't hold true. You can write it for the top 10% of android devices and it will, but it won't work everywhere, due to the vast difference in specs (particuclarly in screen size and performance).

Not quite correct - I've been doing some research for a 'droid dev project I'm going to start and it would appear that the current recommendations are to regard 'droid 1.5/1.6 as "legacy" and really target for 2.1+ (can't remember what the appropriate SDK levels are). Consensus in the support forums is that targetting 'droid 1.6+ will get the most number of folks.

3GS sales make up such a tiny % of sales that its irrelvent ... Wasn't trying to get into an "android vs iphone, which is better" debate..been had too many times and its personal preference.

According to the local CPW they're still selling a shedload of 3GS's, heck even my brother traded from X10Mini (Android) to iPhone4, before ditching the '4 for a 3GS because of some issues with the '4.

+1 on the pointlessness of the debate - neither's better than the other, they both have pluses and minuses. I'd love the iPhones media handling and superb software updating policy, (compare with Sony's list of poor excuses), but I'm not sure I'd trade that for the drawbacks of poor integration with my desktop PCs, and having to use iTunes on Windows.

Good post!

[McPhee]

From a platform perspective, it's completely irrelevant. Doesn't matter if Apple has 1 device or 100, it matters whether if I develop an app for iOS, I reach X users or 100 * X.

But when the figures are as close as iOS/Android are the hardware sales figures start to become quite irrelevant to developers as well. There's there's more important platform considerations to take in to account than the latest "X says he's selling more Android hardware by a small margin" or "Y says she's selling more iPhones than anything else". Those figures have such a tiny effect on revenue and profit compared to the price of developing and selling on a platform (accounting for previous programming experience and the learning curve of adapting to these platforms), the price you can sell the app at and the fierceness of competition.

In truth though, I don't think any developer has any excuse for not developing on both platforms these days. Personally I'd develop for the platform I'm most used to coding for first, then go from there. You'll make good money on either platform as long as the app is unique, good and you can get some buzz going.