ABI Research's Senior Practice Director for Mobile Devices, Nick Spencer reports that certified Android smartphone shipments fell quarter-on-quarter for the first time in 4Q 2014. Android shipments fell from 217 million in 3Q 2014 to 206 million in 4Q 2014, mainly due to Apple iOS’ 90% growth from 39.3 million to 74.5 million, and also due to 'forked Android' shipments that run on Android Open Source Project (AOSP).
The competition from Apple iOS reduced Android's share in the high end market, while its share in the low end market, specifically in high growth emerging regions is lost to the forked Androids.
While the threat from Apple iOS has always been around, the forked Android has grown quickly to take over Android's share in those regions due to the increase in low-cost phone makers who are levarging the forked Android to meet the demand for cheaper smartphones.The forked Android AOSP, according to Infoworld, is "akin to DOS: the embedded core OS in Windows before Windows NT came along. In that thinking, the Windows GUI is analogous to Google Mobile Services (GMS), the set of services that runs on top of AOSP to deliver the complete Android experience".
However, at the same time, the forked Android market itself saw a small decline. Spenser attributes this to another initiative by Google -the Android One Initiative which aimes to deliver cheaper Android smartphones via collaboration with other players in the supply chain. This initiative sees Google creating a complete ecosystem that comprises a range of smartphone manufacturers as hardware partners and smartphone processor makers such as Taiwan-based chip maker, MediaTek.
The Android One Initiative expects to deliver smartphones costing around US$100 to emerging markets such as Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Bangladesh and has already kicked off with the launch of three low cost models for the Indian market in September last year in partnership with the local brands- Spice, Micromax and Karbonn.
Commenting on Android premium market, Spenser added that 4Q 2014 has been a seismic quarter and many premium tier Android vendors may once again review their operating system and therefore content and service strategies in light of Apple and forked Android vendor, Xiaomi’s success.
