Droid’s Soaring Sales
The new Droid sales numbers come from Flurry, an analytics firm specializing in mobile applications. The company watches mobile app usage and then uses that data to make overall ownership estimates.
So where does the Droid fall within the smartphone spectrum? According to Flurry, Droid’s 250,000 figure puts it well above the myTouch, but well below the iPhone. The firm says 60,000 myTouch 3G handsets were sold during its launch week, while 1.6 million iPhones went out during its first seven days.
Droid Sales, In Perspective
First, the iPhone 3GS was building upon a massive base of existing iPhone owners, many of whom were guaranteed to be grabbing at Apple’s updated model (or, let’s be honest, practically anything new Apple offered) the second it hit store shelves. Droid didn’t share this advantage; it was a first-generation product without an established fanbase.
Second, and equally noteworthy, the iPhone 3GS launched in eight countries during its first week. The Droid launched only in America. Taking that into consideration, the difference in sales suddenly doesn’t seem quite so overwhelming.
Now, does that make the Droid an “iPhone killer”? As I’ve stated many times before, that’s a phrase I refuse to use in any serious fashion (see here for my thoughts on how anyone who does use it should be punished — and yes, CNNMoney.com writer who actually employed the term “everything killer” in a title today, that means you).
What I will say is that this data certainly suggests a strong sprint out of the gate for the Droid — and, perhaps more important, for the Android platform in general.
The Android Explosion
The growth, while no overnight sensation, can already be observed. Fresh data from Gartner finds Android adoption reached 3.5 percent in the third quarter of 2009, pre-Droid — up from zilch the year before. The biggest losers in year-to-year change: Symbian, which fell about 5 percent, and Windows Mobile, which saw a 3 percent drop. (I’m telling you, if they’d only have put BALLmer Buster and BSOD4me into the Windows Mobile Marketplace, things might have been different.)
As the good folks at BusinessWeek astutely observe, the Motorola Droid may or may not be able to maintain its momentum once the initial excitement wears off and newer Android devices take over the spotlight. But in the grand picture, the Motorola Droid is only a tiny part of the equation. Its relative success signals the beginning of Android being a serious contender in the smartphone market — and that’s something bigger than any iPhone-crushing ad can convey.
JR Raphael is co-founder of geek-humor site eSarcasm. You can keep up with him on Twitter: @jr_raphael.