Android rules U.S. smartphones market with 53 percent share: Is iOS popularity on a wane?

By Lori Sandoval

New market research shows that Android, the operating system of Google, has more phone activations than its rival iOS from Apple, leading the pack of operating system providers, according to the latest analysis findings of Consumer Intelligence Research Partner released on April 18.

The research firm surveyed from April 1 to April 6 about 500 U.S. subjects, who activated a used or new phone between January to March 2014. The survey findings identified that Android got 53 percent of consumers activating their phones in the first quarter, from its previous 43 percent share.
Meanwhile, iOS got 42 percent of the buying population, from its previous 30 percent.

"It increased its share considerably over the previous quarter, when it had only 46% of activations. iOS share of activations fell from 48% in the previous quarter, the first full quarter with iPhone 5S and 5C sales," Josh Lowitz, CIRP partner and co-founder, said in a statement.

The new findings focused only on phone activations, not on the number of devices running on Android, but the CIRP survey also examined shifts in the operating systems and found out that both Android and iOS obtained consumers coming from other platforms. CIRP uses consumer market research strategies, analysis and methods to supply equity securities research to a community of investors, analysts and other industry participants.

Good to note as well that the findings didn't include data on major device releases that can provide awareness of the common consumer interest in smartphones. Research, however, says that 2014 will see big launches of smartphone devices that, in turn, could also lead to a growth in the activation figures.

"The long-term issue is where Android and IOS growth will come from when there are no more basic phones being retired. First-time smartphone buyers are key to that equation," said Mike Levin, also CRIP partner and co-founder.

Other industry players such as BlackBerry and Windows each only got less than 3 percent activation based on the analysis, while the bulk of remaining consumers came from basic phones. During the start of the first quarter, 20 percent of phone buyers have basic phones. 

However, during the quarter, nonsmartphone owners only have 3 percent of the overall share of phones
Recall that Android trailed behind the iOS during 2013's fourth quarter, after having only grabbed activations of 46 percent, while the iOS got 48 percent during the same period.