The past quarter has been a very good one for Android and IDC now estimates that Google’s mobile platform accounted for nearly 80% of all smartphones shipped in Q2 2013. But there’s one place where iOS has been stubbornly resilient and has kept Android largely at bay: In the United States. Asymco’s Horace Dediu took a look at the latest numbers from comScore and found some evidence that Android has for now peaked in the U.S., as its growth stalled over the past quarter and the number of American Android users actually declined for the first time ever.
“The pattern of Android ‘peaking’ has been evident for some time,” wrote Dediu. “Even though share stopped growing about a year ago, Android continued to gain users as overall smartphone consumption increased. The last few months however have shown a slowing of new smartphone users and therefore we have this first instance of Android appearing to lose usage.”
Of course, Apple knows that it can’t rely solely on American consumers to keep growing worldwide, which is why it’s likely releasing a budget version of its iPhone targeted toward consumers in key emerging markets such as China, India and Brazil. But even if its ambitions in emerging markets fall short, the company can feel happy that it has a very strong and profitable firewall in America.
