Android share doubles iPhone in U.S., Samsung most popular vendor

Google’s share of the smartphone market in the United States is now nearly double that of Apple’s iPhone according to new data published Friday. A new report from market research firm iGR states that 47% of U.S. smartphone owners have Android devices while 24% own Apple’s iPhone. The company also found that Samsung is the most popular brand among Android users in the U.S. followed by Motorola, HTC and LG. Less than half of Android users researched the mobile OS before purchasing their smartphones according to the study, and 27% said Google’s reputation was a key factor when they made the decision to purchase an Android phone. ”Understanding why consumers select specific brands and certain smartphones is critical to the success of OEMs in the highly competitive U.S. handset market,” iGR Research Analyst Sarah Thoman said in a statement. “While a user’s current handset brand influences the selection of a new Android smartphone, many other factors also come into play. For example, handset display quality and functionality also highly influenced the smartphone purchase decision.” IGR’s press release follows below.

New iGR Research Shows Samsung as Most Preferred Android Device Brand Among Consumers

Consumer Surveys Also Show That 45 Percent of Android Users Researched the OS Prior to Purchase and Specifically Wanted an Android Device

AUSTIN, TX, Jan 20, 2012 (MARKETWIRE via COMTEX) — The popularity of the Google Android smartphone operating system (OS) has increased significantly in the last few years. New iGR research shows that, at present, 47 percent of U.S. smartphone users have an Android device, followed by 24 percent who own/use an Apple iPhone. Of the major brands supporting Android, Samsung has the highest brand preference among consumers, followed by Motorola, HTC and LG. ZTE and Huawei ranked toward the bottom of the brands studied, although note that these brands currently sell comparatively lower volumes in the U.S. market.

iGR’s new research also shows that 45 percent of Android users researched the OS prior to purchase and specifically selected an Android device when they bought a new smartphone. It also appears that Google’s reputation is driving Android sales — 27 percent of Android users said that they selected an Android smartphone because they believed that Google was a “reputable company” and therefore inferred that Android must also be reputable.

These findings, as well as others relating to consumers’ Android brand preferences and impressions, are presented in iGR’s new market study Android Brand Preferences: U.S. Consumers, published in January 2012.

“Understanding why consumers select specific brands and certain smartphones is critical to the success of OEMs in the highly competitive U.S. handset market,” says iGR Research Analyst, Sarah Thoman, who authored the study. “While a user’s current handset brand influences the selection of a new Android smartphone, many other factors also come into play. For example, handset display quality and functionality also highly influenced the smartphone purchase decision.”

iGR’s new study, Android Brand Preferences: U.S. Consumers, addresses several key topics:

• The number of Android smartphones sold in the U.S. in 2011 (by quarter)
• Why consumers buy Android smartphones
• The profile of the typical Android smartphone user
• The handset features users like on Android smartphones
• How consumers rank Android OEM brands and why
• How the user’s current device brand impacts that user’s Android smartphone purchase
• Which Android OEM brands are associated with the major mobile operators

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U.S. Cellular: We’ll take the iPhone when Apple gives us LTE

www.apple.com/tr/iphone/

It’s a common misconception that Apple is picking winners and losers among the wireless operators by bestowing or withholding the iPhone, but U.S. Cellular and its parent company TDS prove otherwise. TDS CEO Ted Carlson told attendees of a UBS analyst conferenceMonday that U.S. Cellular is waiting for Apple to offer a more “cutting edge” iPhone before U.S. Cellular would be willing to take the risk of selling it, FierceWireless reported. By cutting edge, U.S. Cellular means LTE.

In November, U.S. Cellular revealed that Apple had offered it the CDMA variant of the iPhone, but it declined, saying it couldn’t make the economics work. That makes a lot of sense in this case: selling the iPhone requires enormous upfront subsidies from wireless operators, leading U.S. Cellular to question the model’s profitability. In addition, the smartphone takes a tremendous toll on operators’ data networks.

Other regional operators like C Spire have risen to the challenge, but C Spire doesn’t have what U.S. Cellular has: a big, dense, data-hungry market like Chicago. U.S. Cellular only has 20 MHz of PCS spectrum in Chicago, with which it serves a tightly packed population of more than 13 million. U.S. Cellular doesn’t have that many 1X voice and EV-DO data carriers to go around. The iPhone’s enormous data impact likely would force U.S. Cellular to shift more voice channels to EV-DO, which might upset the delicate balance between voice and data services it has in Chicago.

The smarter thing to do, from U.S. Cellular’s perspective, is wait until Apple births an LTE smartphone, presumably the iPhone 5. U.S. Cellular plans to launch its own LTE network within the month, starting in smaller markets across its regional footprint.

But if U.S. Cellular does plan to support the LTE iPhone, it won’t launch it in Chicago – at least not with its current spectrum holdings. The operator failed to pick up any 700 MHz spectrum at auction in its flagship market, though it picked up licenses in all of the surrounding regions. U.S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless have filed a petition with the FCC to swap some of the former’s PCS spectrum throughout the country for some of the latter’s 700 MHz spectrum in Illinois and Indiana. If Chicago is part of that deal – and Verizon is flush with Windy City frequencies – then U.S. Cellular can build a complete iPhone-worthy 4G network.

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