The craze for Smartphones by consumers is driving various operating
system providers to earn a slice of pie in the growing segment. Internet search engine giant Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) android operating system is set to be a major force with a larger market with two kinds of OS to suit different regions. Google's Android will see a major boost from the emerging nations, especially Asian and African regions to make its OS the most sought after.
Though there is still debate going on as to whose operating system is better, whether Google's Android or Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL) iOS, Google has been silently catching up the growing Asian and African markets, albeit with different set of operating system to meet low-cost smartphones demands.
There is already opinion doing the round that Android's OS is not more stable and get crashed, whereas iOS is much more stable. But this has been reportedly rebuffed by Crittercism, a mobile application observing company, with a data that suggested 2 to 1 margin of iOS gets crashed frequently than Android's. In fact, the monitoring company viewed that 28.64 percent of the crashes came from iOS 5.0.1, which is a bad news for Apple that is set to launch iPhone 5. By contrast, Google's Android 2.3.3 crashes only 3.86 percent based on user reports.
But doubts were also raised about the manner in which the survey's methodology has been conducted, especially with the uneven number of OS comparability. It was reported that about 162 million of iOS was taken into consideration, whereas only 52 million of Android was taken for consideration.
Nonetheless, one thing seems to be sure, i.e. Google's Android OS is making waves across the borders. But the company is also adopting cheap methods to capture sizeable market share in the Asian sub-continent and Africa. This is being done to meet the low-cost smartphone demands that are being sold in the region.
The Android that is being sold in the U.S. and European Union are different from what it is being sold in rest of the world, according to In-Stat survey. It also appears that wireless operators are choosing Android leaving iOS in the lurch.
Google's Android, which was launched only a couple of years back, is already enjoying a sizeable market share in the developed nations. The company had to come up with a cheaper version of Android to meet the lucrative Asian mobile market. In-Stat projects that Google's cheaper version of Android handsets would reach 80 percent of total smartphone segment in India, China and Africa by the turn of 2015. The number of units shipped is estimated to touch 340 million units globally in 2015.
Google will face tough competition in the emerging nations from the likes of Samsung, Nokia and Microsoft, who have their own cheaper version of handsets to take on Android as well as iOS.
In the operating system segment for smartphones, Google's Android is already on top despite Apple's increased market share in the fourth quarter. While Google's Android enjoyed a market share of 50.9 percent on top of 30.5 percent last year, Apple's iOS market share grew to 23.8 percent from 15.8 percent in the year-ago quarter, Gartner's recent data revealed. Symbian and RIM lost market share to 11.7 percent from 32.3 percent and to 8.8 percent from 14.6 percent respectively.