Android Sales Soar, Overtake Apple

Google Android’s second-quarter smartphone sales rose sharply enough to overtake Apple handsets among recent smartphone acquirers, 27 percent to 23 percent, according to a recent study released by The Nielsen Co.

The results mark a first for Google, whose Android operating system has experienced volatile growth (886 percent second-quarter sales spike, year over year) but was yet to surpass Apple in quarterly sales … until now.

Partially responsible for the Android adoption explosion is the number of handset makers and models that implement the operating system, namely Motorola’s Droid and several HTC phones.

Android’s dramatic uptake notwithstanding, Google’s OS still trails Apple in total smartphone market share by a sizable 28 percent to 13 percent margin. However, Android’s total market adoption surged by 4 percent in the second quarter, while Apple’s growth was flat. BlackBerry continues to lead in total market share at 35 percent and in six-month subscriber acquisition at 33 percent, numbers that have consistently dipped over the past five quarters.

Apple can take solace in its stellar loyalty score, with 89 percent of current subscribers willing to stick with the iOS4 and 21 percent of active Android users expressing a desire to switch to Apple, according to the Nielsen report.

Interestingly, Google does not distill Android revenues apart from search, instead lumping its smartphone initiative under the search umbrella. With search driving the company’s revenues and Google persistent in its belief that search-based browsing is the front door to mobile use, CEO Eric Schmidt is understandably confident in the success of Android, even if its revenues are not material or distinct.

In a media briefing captured by TechCrunch, he boasts that search revenues are “large enough to pay for all of the Android activities and a whole bunch more.”

As we have previously written, this philosophy rubs up against Apple, which has designs on an application-centric world, a closed platform that aspires to take advantage of the native capabilities of the phone.