Android Phones Win Smartphone Marketshare War Despite iPhone 6 Buzz

Android Phones are often thought of as the quirky cousins of the Apple iPhone but it appears that Android and its long ling of phones are making some serious in-roads when it comes to popularity. More importantly to the smartphone market, Android is making some real ground when it comes to phone handset sales.

According to the AFP, a new report by industry analyst IDC says that Android phones are actually seeing even bigger sales numbers than expected. The line of handsets that all come with Google’s operating system actually saw a 33 percent jump in sales numbers over the past year.

Google reportedly shipped more than 255 million units between March and June of this year. Those numbers helped Google’s entry in the smartphone wars take more than 84 percent of the market.

Considering all you hear about the iPhone and the upcoming iPhone 6, its hard to fathom that Apple only has 11 percent of the total market. This is where Google has played the smarter bulk businessman, because the computing giant deals in quantity while letting others handle how the handset is actually going to look and feel.

Apple has taken the approach that it won’t put its operating system into any handset it doesn’t map out and produce itself. Android phones come from a wide variety of different companies including LG, Samsung and HTC.

Even better news for Google is the same report claims smartphones are only getting more popular and the total market grew by 25 percent in the last quarter. Neither Apple, Microsoft or Blackberry took advantage of the growth the way Android was able to take advantage.

One reason Google’s operating system has managed to hold onto such high shipping numbers is most of the phones that carry the OS are being offered for quite a bit less than the price tag people expect the iPhone 6 to carry.

As Engadget points out, most new Android phones are costing users less than $200 and even less than that if they purchase them with new wireless contracts. This has also helped the company get its product out to emerging markets.

China and India are two parts of the world that are only getting more Android phone hungry as they continually step away from Apple and its always more expensive offering.

This approach when it comes to the Android operating system likely means Google is going to be the king of the mobile phones market for quite a while. It’s hard to envision a real competitor to the market share Android phones have built.