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Analysts: Google's Android Innovation Outpacing Apple

By Leo Boon Yeow - on 19 Nov 2012, 10:38am

Analysts: Google's Android Innovation Outpacing Apple

Image Source: Google Play Store

According to Business Insider, analysts have come to a conclusion as to why Android now has a significantly larger smartphone market share than the products from Apple. It seems that low prices as well as innovation are the two biggest factors that have contributed to Google's Android capturing about 72% (Gartner's number) of the global smartphone market share.

"The pace of innovation in Android is faster than Apple," said Gartner vice president of mobile computing Ken Dulaney. "They are just trying harder; Apple is way behind in that area."

Besides conceding smartphone market share, Apple also conceded a significant amount of tablet market share to Android tablets like Google's own Nexus 7, as well as Amazon's Kindle Fire, the latter of which runs a heavily modified version of Android.

"Having a lot of people building a lot of things covering a lot of price points with multiple brands in multiple places makes a big difference," said NPD Group analyst Stephen Baker. "Variety is strength when it comes to moving units."

However, analysts also noted that Samsung is (for now) the biggest beneficiary of Android's success, with dozens of other Android smartphone manufacturers (most notably HTC) struggling to make a profit in an increasingly competitive environment.

Android's fast pace also has another downside: fragmentation. This is a direct result of Android's free and open nature. While Apple pushes out updates in an orderly fashion, Android's frequent updates are often held up by either carriers or manufacturers.

Analysts also pointed out that the negative aspects of Android won't be enough to slow Android's growth. That's because they think that Google has done a good job of improving its "ecosystem", which may lead to Android appearing on typically "dumb" devices like appliances and thus widening its reach.

Source: Business Insider.

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