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Apple’s mobile market share sees big drop in May as Android skyrockets

Updated Dec 19th, 2018 9:18PM EST
iPhone Market Share 2016

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Sales of Apple’s iPhone line of smartphones declined for the first time ever last quarter and everyone has been down on Apple ever since, from the media and investors and even to many end users. What’s more, iPhone 7 leaks have suggested that Apple’s upcoming new smartphones for 2016 will feature a design that’s largely the same as the company’s current iPhone models. Apple’s situation certainly isn’t as dark as some are making them out to be, but there’s little question that things are trending downward right now — and May’s mobile market share data offers even more gloomy data to that effect.

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Net Applications tracks monthly platform usage to put its market share data together each month, and it has always followed sales trends very closely. Unlike most market share data published by market research firms, this data is based on actual device usage statistics as opposed to end user device sales or channel sales.

So how does May’s data look for Apple? Not good. Not good at all.

As you can see from the chart above, Apple’s share of the smartphone and tablet market declined significantly in May to 23.10%. That’s big drop from 28.42% in April, and iOS’s share was nearly 32% in March. At the same time, Android’s share of the market skyrocketed to a record high 70.85% in May, up from 61.92% in the prior month.

Also of note, Windows Phone dropped to 2.57% after spiking to more than 4% in April. Meanwhile, BlackBerry’s market share sank to under 1% for the first time ever.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.