Canalys a UK based research firm specialized in delivering high quality market data and analysis predicted yesterday that Android will continue to grow at a rate twice as much as its major competitors in 2011 despite of market concerns over platform fragmentation and the arrival of iPhone 4 on Verizon in the US.
‘The growth of Android has been phenomenal, but so too has the number of related devices launched with different hardware and software specifications,’ said Canalys Principal Analyst Chris Jones. ‘This has led to the market perception of it as a fragmented platform, though we believe that growth will continue as the pace of Android OS upgrades slows.’
Android platform rapid evolution since its inception back in September 2008 required increased resources from both device vendors and application developers to support it.
‘The need to differentiate has pushed vendors to create customized user interface overlays for their Android devices,’ said Jones. ‘As additional investment is required to ensure compatibility with each operating system upgrade, this has hampered vendors’ efforts to stay up-to-date with the latest Android iteration on current devices.’
‘Fragmentation affects all OS platforms, though it is particularly visible with Android due to the fast pace of upgrades that has characterized its growth,’ said Jones. ‘The problem has been less pronounced on competitive platforms, such as Apple’s iOS, as devices have been able to support the iOS 4 upgrades since the iPhone 3G. Nokia has also sought to minimize its fragmentation issues by utilizing the cross-platform Qt framework.’
Android vendors leveraged it in order to push smart phones prices down and bring smart phones to the mass market. As a result Android shipments grew by more than 1000% in the first three quarters of 2010 over the same period in 2009
On the other hand Android has benefited phone vendors like Samsung, HTC and PC vendors like Acer by entering the market with a broad product range of smart phones and pads
‘Vendors are trying to differentiate further on the hardware front, with faster and more powerful processors, as well as larger screen sizes,’ said Canalys Senior Analyst Daryl Chiam. ‘Last week, LG announced the first smart phone to support a dual-core processor, while Acer and Samsung showcased smart phones with screen sizes of 4.8″ and 4.5″ respectively.’
‘With Android’s momentum expected to stay strong, the installed base of Android-based smart phones and pads will rapidly increase – good news for developers,’ said Chiam. ‘To be successful, developers must be prepared to cater to the abilities of the different device categories, tweaking the user experience of their applications accordingly. This additional effort is well worth the potential benefit of broader application distribution.’
‘To support developers, Google must also make substantial enhancements to the Android Market, including the ability to detect device platforms, highlighting the applications suitable for each, which would improve the user experience and increase the number of downloads,’ said Chiam.
