Now the Official Xiaomi Number ('over 70M') and apparently only 1M Windows 10 Lumia devices for Xmas

A few numbers in the smartphone wars.

First off, that Xiaomi number. So this is now the official number (I mistakenly reported on an old news story last time). Xiaomi said their full year 2015 sales were 'more than 70 million'. Not more precise than that. Lets say its about 71 million. Their last official number was 'slightly below 35 million' for first half of 2015, so if we say thats 34 million, then their 'year-halfs' grew from 34 million to 37 million. I would hope the Chinese started to report actual unit sales to one decimal point of millions, in accuracy and every quarter. But still, this is better than nothing. 71 million would be 16% growth vs 2014 and give Xiaomi a rough market share of about 4.7%. For the Christmas quarter, Xiaomi's sales would be roughly flat 18.5 million vs the estimated Q3 (and consistent with Chinese regulator data on new smartphone sales in China being flat QoQ) and the quarterly market share be about 4%. So Xiaomi is there in that crowded mid-field in the race for final rank of 2015 unit sales and market share.

Then two other numbers. Flurry is not the best of measures for the total market but they give good trend data and in this case, are likely a pretty good source. II am talking about screen sizes out of the total population. Flurry just reported on Q4 smallish device sales (smartphones and tablets) by screen size. Phablets now account for one third of all new smartphones sold. Small screen smartphones (under 3.5 inch screen size) is down to 1% of new sales. And how are phablets vs tablets? Phablets sell about 50% more than all tablets combined. Yeah, its once again exactly as I predicted on something many argued vehemently that tablets would win. No, mobile always wins. Mobile + Anything = Mobile. It happened with stand-alone PDAs, it happened with stand-alone MP3 players, it happened with stand-alone cameras, and now it happened with stand-alone tablets.

When I do a very rough estimate of actual unit numbers based on the percentages reported by Flurry, suggests total market for new phablets sold in 2015 was 285 million units, and traditional tablets 300 million. For 2016 if those trends continue on linear pattern, phablet new sales would be 660 million units and traditional tablets roughly flat at maybe 310 million units. I don't mean these as a formal forecast, as even Flurry's own methodology gives less than precise starting points, but in rough terms those are reasonable numbers. Year 2015 was the year when in quarterly sales phablets shot past tablets, but for full year the sales were nearly even. For this year 2016 phablets will definitely sell far more. In very rough terms, phablets will sell in very very rough terms, twice the number compared to traditional tablets (say plus/minus at least 100M for either form factor). Meanwhile out of all smartphones? Right now, one third of all smartphones sold have phablet-size screens. If the trend continues in linear pattern through 2016, by December 2016, 44% of all new smartphones sold will be phablets. For the full year, again, in very very rough estimate based on Flurry measurements of recent years, we could see about 39% of new phones sold this year.

Then the happy news for some of our readers. Windows 10 is being crushed in the smartphone wars. Microsoft reported 200 million Win 10 devices activated. There is an analysis by Mary Jo Foley at ZD Net, who has split that 200M number into PC, Xbox and smartphone platforms. 180M are PCs, 18M are Xbox devices and only 1M are Lumia and other smartphones for Xmas sales. If you had any hopes Windows 10 would be the magic to revive Lumia sales, haha, yes, keep on dreaming. Windows platform for smartphones is dead, Microsoft will soon be shutting down the Lumia business, this is total failure and suggests Xmas sales for Luma will once again be horrid (and do expect more layoffs again to come). Besides, once again, who told you so, haha.. Ok, more smartphone wars stats as they come in.

Comments

[Barney]

@Marty:

"The iPhone is the new Windows because everyone — Google and Microsoft included — has to develop for it. Google needs Apple’s mobile platform. And Microsoft needs Apple’s mobile platform. But Apple doesn’t need Google or Microsoft’s platforms. The smartphone wars are over. Apple won. Microsoft lost. Android placed."

http://techpinions.com/who-won-the-smartphone-wars-google-or-apple/43246"

Now, that's as clueless as it gets. And it's typical iEconomy thinking - looking for the short term gain while completely lacking any forward vision.

[Per "wertigon" Ekström]

@Winter: It's semantics, really, but "Linux" is still not an OS. Ubuntu is an OS, Android is another, and Fedora is a third all based on the same kernel.

Android and Ubuntu have little more in common than the kernel, however.

But yes, Linux-based OSes have conquered the world. I just simply dislike people saying GNU/Linux-based operating systems and Android-based operating systems are the same, because they are not. They have very little in common except for the kernel.

Of course, GNU/Linux is slowly being eaten by Systemd/Linux but that's a whole other flamewar I don't feel like getting into right now... :)

[chithanh]

@PWE
> Android and Ubuntu have little more in common than the kernel, however.

It is correct that Android and Ubuntu have less in common than e.g. Ubuntu and Fedora. But calling it "little" is quite wrong.

The problem for Google was the GNU GPL, which it tried to keep out of Android as much as possible. BSD/MIT licensed stuff like wpa_supplicant and dozens of other pieces of software are commonly found both on Android and GNU/Linux distros.

And with Google's acceptance of the GPL for Android userland (thanks to the Oracle lawsuit) we are going to see a whole new era of code sharing between Android and other distros. OpenJDK will be the start, next probably the Bluetooth stack.

[Winter]

@Per
"@Winter: It's semantics, really, but "Linux" is still not an OS. Ubuntu is an OS, Android is another, and Fedora is a third all based on the same kernel."

The term "Semantics" is often abused, but here you use it correctly. Semantics is the study of "meaning" of words. This seems apt.

We are now arguing that a mouse is not an elephant but both are mammals. Yes, they are very different, but a lot of what "works" for the one will work for the other. Compared to an octopus, they are more alike than different. At one time, MS was selling three versions of Windows, CE/ME/NT, to users as "One OS". These three versions differed fundamentally and did not even use the same kernel. But they "looked" the same (in their marketing materials).

Now, it is said we should not compare Android to Ubuntu because reasons?

The situation between Linux and Android is explained here:

http://elinux.org/images/c/ca/Using_chroot_to_bring_linux_applications_to_android--anderson.pdf

An OS is a badly defined beast. It is true that you cannot simply take a binary program from one version of Linux and expect it to run on another version of Linux. A KDE program needs a lot of supporting code to run on a Gnome distribution and vice versa. When a distribution uses Xwindows, it cannot show graphics or windows when there is no Xwindows available etc. One of the main problems under android is the different C library (bionic libc).

On the other hand, OS' that are based on the Linux kernel share many other structures, libraries, file systems, and tools.

The link above shows how you can run "desktop" Linux on Android using standard interfaces (chroot) and Google Play apps.

[Barney]

@Wayne Brady:

Can this nonsense please stop?

Money is not equivalent to market share, neither is it equivalent to market power. The fact that iOS is more 'profitable' doesn't mean much, ultimately.

It's the same if you said that ten billionaires matter more than 100000 normal people because they pay more taxes. If everything was run with such metrics we'd be in one hell of a place.

[Winter]

@Lullz
"The real question is this. What does it matter for a consumer if it's based on Linux or not?"

The opinion of the consumer is completely and utterly irrelevant in this discussion.

The "average user" has the luxury to be ignorant about the differences in technology between computer platforms (ARM vs x86 vs Mips), software (WP, vs iOS vs Android) or car technology (petrol, natural gas, diesel, electric). That does not make these differences irrelevant, it just makes the opinion of the average consumer on technology irrelevant.

[Winter]

@Lullz
"What the relevant question now?"

Why do companies produce Android phones by the shipload, but not WP phones? They are different, but why?

The difference is "technological". Few Android users can tell what makes Android different from WP. Those who produce the handsets do know what makes these two platforms different. One thing is the Linux kernel.