Tablets

Google’s Android looks to be spreading faster than believed

Android fans already know that Google’s operating system quickly spread across the world, conquering everything in its path; however, this latest analysis suggests it spread even more quickly than we could have imagined as PhoneArena has recently pointed out. According to Horace Dediu, an Asymco analyst, it turns out that Android is the fastest growing technology product in history! The metric he used to determine this was a comparison of total adoption numbers across specific time-frames after an initial launch. Here are a few mobile stats to put it in perspective:

• Symbian hit 450 million users in 44 quarters (11 years)
• BlackBerry hit 225 million users in 43 quarters (about 11 years)
• Windows Mobile hit 72 million in 30 quarters
• Apple’s iOS hit 700 Million users in only 23 Quarters (almost 6 years)
• Android hit 1 Billion users in only 20 quarters (5 years)

The pic above charts some other devices throughout the history of tech. It’s interesting to take a glance at the Android & iOS versus PC Sales. The huge spike is something the PC industry never had. Of course, it’s not a perfect apples to apples comparison, but it’s still worth noting. There’s one other thing worth noting in the infographic. Despite the massive acceleration of adoption, there are still quite a few people left in the world who still don’t have smartphones. In China we are only 34% into their total market, and even in the United States we are only a little over half way there.