Android @lemmy.world skymtf @pricefield.org 1 yr. ago

Are androids even profitable in the US

I've been questioning if android is even profitable enough for manufacturers to justify it in the US, like apple has the largest market share in the US and I see that everyday. Nearly every phone I see is an iPhone. The android phones I do see are rarely flagships.

29 comments

Android has 41% market share in the US. It sounds like you've got some pretty heavy sampling bias going on.
- I mean I have a pixel currently so its not my bias
  
  They're referring to what you have observed, you are looking for and wanting to see Iphones.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_bias
Clearly they're profitable. 40% of all phone sales in the USA are Android. There's literally billions being made.
- Thing is, “Android” is not a monolith. That can mean a whole bunch of different things… there is version fragmentation, vendor fragmentation, stock vs bloatware apps, dramatic capability differences, etc. So it’s not an “Android” vs “iOS” equation, but Android vs Android vs Android vs iOS.
  
  From a software development POV, unless you are a big brand it almost never makes sense to develop for Android until after you’ve shipped an iOS product (if ever).
- Yeah I just wonder where it compares to other sectors. Though 60% iPhones would explain my I tend to see so many of them
  
  I probably see close to 50/50 out in the world. I travel often so i see a wide range going through airports.
not to be rude, just an observation, but that's your bubble

a product doesn't need to be a flagship to be profitable and being a flagship is not a sign of profitability.

that's... not even a choice for manufacturers? Would you expect them to start producing and selling iphones instead, or leave a multi-billion dollar vacuum in the market?
iOS is a majority share, but not by much.

My opinion here might upset some fanboys:

Android is in a sad state right now with only a few big OEMs pushing into the market, and the fragmentation is what’s killing it. The average person doesn’t care about customizing or having a micro SD slot, they just want to text and browse TikTok - so they choose a phone that’s simple and works without headache for years.

On the android side you have really only Samsung, Motorola, and sorta google. Motorola covers a lot of the budget android market, but it’s cheap disposable phones. Samsung covers the whole range, but then you buy into the bloatware and duplicate apps. Then you have google sitting in the corner eating glue, consistently releasing phones with hot SoCs, bad reception, and botched software updates.

For the average person the iPhone makes complete sense as Apple only releases a few phones a year, and for a while now every single one has been relatively issue-free. Customers feel confident that the newest iPhone will be a similar experience, copy all their data over in 5 minutes, and work well for years to come.

So really I wouldn’t say it’s a case of “profitability”, moreso lacking compelling feature to draw in new customers, while continuing to bleed customers to the iPhone because the average person doesn’t want to be bothered with complicated features that aren’t consistent across android OEMs. We’ve seen a lot of Android OEMs leave the US market because of these reasons.
- Just spewing utter bullshit. Google phones are top class. Generally the highest rates of android on the market. There's more android OEM than you can Shake a stock at. New ones come onboard pretty regularly and old ones fade away. I think HTC is coming BS k from the dead. Sony continues to churn out decent enough phones and youve got the OnePlus and other Chinese phones under that brand.
  
  All pretty decent and every single one of them can text and play tiktok. If that's your criteria a dumb phone from 2010 can do that.
  
  Why would you pedastall a 1200$ or however much apple goes for. If you want basics buy basics.
  
  Top class enh?
  
  Must be why the forums and communities are full of people asking about battery drain, reception issues, and software update bugs.
  
  Also what iPhone you buying that’s $1200? You do know samsung has several devices that are more expensive than even the top tier iPhone, right?
  
  Google phones are top class.
  
  If you get lucky in their QC lottery, perhaps.
  
  https://www.xda-developers.com/google-pixel-fold-quality-control/
What software would non-apple manufacturers use other than android?
I'm sure other manufacturer's would build iPhones if they could.

But they can't so they have to compete against other manufacturer's in the Android marketplace.

So...Are Android phones cheap because they're unprofitable, or are they cheap because direct competition actually incentivizes those companies to control costs?

Maybe the question you should be asking is: "Are iPhones really worth the ballooning price?"

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