The iPhone has never held more than half of the market share. Before now.
TL;DR
The iPhone now outsells Android in the US market, according to Counterpoint.
Comparing Apple iPhone install bases to smart and feature phones running Android, Apple iPhone install bases account for 50% of the market.
Since the release of the iPhone 13, the growth of the iPhone has exploded.
In the majority of the ongoing competition between Android and iOS, Android has consistently outperformed iOS in terms of sheer numbers. After all, there are currently over 2 billion Android devices in use worldwide. Android ruled dominant even here in the United States.
So far, at least. The Financial Times data obtained from Counterpoint Research shows that in terms of sales in the US, the iPhone outperforms Android. The number of active iPhone devices, or the active install base, now accounts for more than 50% of the US market for the first time ever.
To make matters even more severe, Android feature phones are also included in the comparison, in addition to Android smartphones.
The chart below, which tells a number of stories, is visible.
Android loses to iPhone: an unpleasant comparison
The number of active iPhone instals from 2018 to 2019 stayed unchanged. Through 2019 and into 2021, it increased gradually (but quite steadily). It briefly stopped in the middle of 2021 before exploding in the second half of the year. It barely slowed in 2022.
The data makes it very clear how popular the iPhone 13 series has been among US consumers. The rise in 2021 was substantial but it hit a wall in the summer. However, the statistics simply poured in as soon as the iPhone 13 series was released.
Be aware that this graph doesn’t actually indicate anything about iPhone users who persisted. In other words, the number of active iPhones wouldn’t change if someone had an iPhone 12 and then upgraded to an iPhone 13, so the chart wouldn’t show a change. The majority of the people in this graph are those purchasing their first iPhone. You already know what it implies—the majority of those users probably converted from Android.
It is obvious that if Google and the other Android OEMs want to prevent this chart from rising much further in 2023, they will need to act quickly.
