Five Reasons Why Google Android versus Apple iOS Market Share Numbers Don’t Matter.

Gartner just released its Q2 2012 mobile sales unit report, ranking vendors and operating systems for mobile devices.  Over this past quarter, of the mobile devices sold, 64.1% are powered by Google’s Android and 18.8% are operated by Apple’s iOS.  Google’s Android made significant strides over the past year when 43.1% of mobile devices sold in Q2 2011 operated on Android.  Apple remained about the same.  Should investors care about these statistics?

At an initial pass, two trends in the past quarter are important to note before reading too much into the Apple versus Google battle.  While Google gained 20.7% market share over the same period a year ago, Nokia and Research in Motion, together, lost 21.7%.  Google’s gain may have more to do with Nokia’s and Research in Motion’s losses than a win against Apple.  Moreover, Apple’s iPhone unit sales were below expectations in the second quarter due to interest in Apple’s upcoming iPhone 5, announcement expected September 12.  New product releases by either Apple or manufacturers using Google’sAndroid can influence market share numbers from quarter to quarter, and the ratio of Android to iOS market share tends closer to 2:1.  More importantly is that Apple iOS + Google’s Android operating systems run almost 85% of the mobile devices sold.

Original article posted at http://www.forbes.com/sites/darcytravlos/2012/08/22/five-reasons-why-google-android-versus-apple-ios-market-share-numbers-dont-matter/