For all the hullabaloo about the iPhone,� the three largest U.S. wireless providers sold an estimated 9.3 million non-iPhone smartphones in the third quarter compared to 4.7 million iPhones.
But plenty of folks were waiting for Apple (AAPL) to release the iPhone 4S. Does that explain why there was a slight decline in sales of Android, Blackberry and other smartphones, compared to 9.4 million non-iPhone units sold in the third quarter of 2010? Yes, says Morgan Keegan Analyst Tavis McCourt.
iPhone customers clearly were waiting: iPhone unit sales shrank nearly 10% from 5.2 million units in the third quarter of 2010, according to data McCourt compiled from AT&T (T), Verizon Communications (VZ) and Sprint Nextel (S).
“It makes very little sense that Android and Blackberry were down. Either this is all economic, or there are a bunch of Android and Blackberry subscribers waiting to buy the iPhone 4S,”� McCourt tells Barrons.com.
Of the slower sequential and year-over-year sales of Blackberries (Research in Motion (RIMM)) and devices employing Google (GOOG) Android software, McCourt says “the data argues for a meaningful amount of Android/Blackberry users not upgrading in Q3 in order to switch to iOS in Q4 across all carriers.”
Apple continued to dominate industry profits, with a 61.1% share, McCourt estimates.
No comments:
Post a Comment