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CIRP claims Apple’s U.S. mobile market share climbed from 28% to 40%, year-on-year

Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (CIRP) is reporting that Apple saw it’s U.S. mobile market share climb from 28% in March 2015 to 40% a year later. Samsung climbed one percentage point from 36% to 37% in the same period.

The 40% number for current market share is bang in line with that reported by Park Associates back in February, but the year-ago 28% number seems a little more suspect. Park also put Samsung’s share at 31% while CIRP has the company at 37%. CIRP’s numbers are based on a consumer survey with a rather small sample of just 500 people, so should be viewed with some skepticism.

Strategy Analytics provided its take on Apple’s worldwide market share for 2015 back in January, suggesting then that the company climbed 1.1% to hit 16.1% while Samsung’s global share dropped 2.5% to 22.2%. The company didn’t provide any breakdown by country.

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Comments

  1. Grayson Mixon - 8 years ago

    I would love to know numbers on installed base. The second hand market for Apple devices is much larger than for any other manufacturer, and people tend to use them longer. So, even if they sold 40% of devices, I’m curious to know what percentage of active phones are from Apple. Could it be 60% or 70%? We know from web usage that the majority of mobile web browsing is on iOS.

    Only Apple and Google really know how many phones are active out there. We just need them to release the numbers. But they’re not, except in vague terms. 1 billion devices active worldwide!

    • chasinvictoria - 8 years ago

      I’m not sure if you mean China alone or worldwide, but inasmuch as Apple does actually say exactly how many phones they sold quarter by quarter, you can look up the reports and work out the numbers pretty easily yourself on total sales worldwide (these are further broken down by region if I’m not mistaken in the formal press releases). “Installed base” is a little tricky because some people keep phones for three years, some for one year, but essentially take all iPhones sold in the last two years, at a small percentage extra for those who hang on to things a long time, and that’s the present installed base.

      • rocwurst - 8 years ago

        Chas, we can make a pretty good estimation of the installed base of the iOS platform as a whole based on the recent revelation from Apple that there are now over 1 Billion active Apple devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, AppleTV, Apple Watch, Mac) worldwide and from Google in Sept that there are 1.4 Billion active Android devices worldwide.

        Apple has only sold 78 million Macs in the last 4 years and 12 million Apple Watches and around 20 million AppleTVs in that time.

        Even if we assume that ALL of those devices are still active after 4 years, we are still looking at around 900 million of those 1 Billion active Apple devices being iOS devices.

        That is an extraordinary 60% the size of Google’s 1.4 Billion active Android devices, far higher than you might expect considering Apple’s 15% iPhone unit sales market share.

  2. mpias3785 - 8 years ago

    Imagine how well Apple would have done if the 6 series wasn’t so ugly?

    • rocwurst - 8 years ago

      That’s odd, I find my iPhone 6+ to be the most gorgeous iPhone yet. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder I guess.

      • mpias3785 - 8 years ago

        Or in the Kool-Aid. ;-)

        I guess you don’t recall the shock of disbelief and howls of derision when the first renderings of those hideous antenna lines came to light, but I do, and it was well documented here on 9to5Mac. Even so, I love my 6s (except for the battery life) but I do have the decency to keep it in a case so as not to frighten small children and cause them to require therapy later in life.

      • rocwurst - 8 years ago

        I never understood what the big deal people had with the lines on the back. Seems pretty silly to me.

      • mpias3785 - 8 years ago

        It wasn’t just the antenna lines, it was the overall design. The curved body and screens with curved edges caused numerous problems, not the least of which was the bending problem. People tried to downplay this but it was real enough for Apple to switch from 6000 grade aluminum to the more expensive 7000 grade, thus tripling the strength. Anyone with a passing knowledge of engineering knows round tubular construction is far more deformable than box type construction.

        The design also left the screen FAR more vulnerable to damage than previous designs. I know a many longtime iPhone users who first shattered a screen when they switched to the 6 series.

        Form over function is a very bad idea, and the antenna lines are just a neon sign pointing out this failure.

  3. Steffen Jobbs - 8 years ago

    Nice tease, however it’s not going to stop Apple’s share price from tanking on earnings. It wouldn’t be enough for Wall Street if Apple had 2 billion active devices. As long as Apple has less market share than Android, the stock isn’t going to move up. Apple iPhone sales will always be directly compared to all of Android smartphone sales.

Author

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Ben Lovejoy

Ben Lovejoy is a British technology writer and EU Editor for 9to5Mac. He’s known for his op-eds and diary pieces, exploring his experience of Apple products over time, for a more rounded review. He also writes fiction, with two technothriller novels, a couple of SF shorts and a rom-com!


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