Competition is the Backbone for Android's Unrivaled Growth

Oct. 18, 2013 - PRLog -- The past of mobile devices was Apple's iOS but with the open platform and enormous community support Android has quickly surpassed the once innovative platform.  To give a little background on the mobile market share from a year over year from Q1 2012 to the same quarter this year Android and iOS have made up of 92.3 percent of the mobile market up from 79 percent.  With this enormous growth iOS has dropped year over year to just over 17 percent of the market leaving Android so far ahead of competition that its unlikely anyone will catch up.  Keep in mind while processing these numbers that mobile shipments have increased in that same timeframe by over 59 percent.

While giving background on market shares and growth of the Android OS we didn't explain why the growth has been so extreme.  The main reason for the growth of Android from our point of view is the fact that its an open platform that has many different manufacturers an no centralized approving power to block innovation.  The Android community is the largest mobile community in the world with support from thousands of streams stemming from resources as large as XDA Developers (http://www.xda-developers.com/) and other smaller resources like Android Advice & Tutorials (http://www.android-advice.com).  There is absolutely no lack of support when issues come up or customizations when you want to completely re-skin your devices way of functioning.

Finally to the reason for this article, competition being a solid reason for Android's rapid growth.  We see some of the largest manufacturers in the world like Samsung and HTC creating multiple devices each year that run on the Android OS.  What this does is gives choices to users to find the device and features that they hold most dear, as well as the ability to choose from countless other manufacturers.  Another reason for competition being so valuable for the Android OS is the fact that so many manufacturers create competitive pricing in the market.  This allows for low end and high end devices alike to saturate the market for all incomes.

Take the example of Google Glass, this is one of the most highly anticipated accessories and alone has not progressed as far as we would like.  This being said there are now other manufacturers jumping in on the innovation behind the Android Glasses like Samsung with their Gear Glass and even lesser known entities like the Chinese Telepathy One.  We have seen this with smart watches as well that are now produced by more than a handful of companies.  These products get new features and lower price points due to the fact that the competition is within the same market as well as the ability to share features of the open Android OS.