Verizon's Apple iPhone 4 launch took the wind out of Android's sails

The NPD Group today announced the results of its Q1 Mobile Phone Track U.S. sales estimates which shows how the Verizon iPhone launch impacted Android's momentum in the beginning of the year. For Android, it was the first quarter with declining market share since the second quarter of 2009-the last three month period before the launch of the game changing Motorola DROID.

After the first quarter of 2011, the Apple iPhone had a 14% marketshare in the U.S., good for third place among all cellphones in the nation. Samsung led the way in the U.S. with a 23% slice of the cellphone pie, which includes both smartphones and feature phones. LG was second with an 18% share. The last quarter was the first time in the U.S. that smartphone sales exceeded featurephone sales.

Looking at smartphone sales exclusively, Android controlled 50% of the U.S. market in the 2011 first quarter, down sequentially from the 53% scored in the 2010 fourth quarter. In the same period, Apple picked up 9% of the smartphone market to have a 28% share. On the other hand, RIM lost 5% of its smartphone share to finish with 14% going into the current three month period.

The top selling smartphone in the U.S. last quarter was the Apple iPhone 4 with the Apple iPhone 3GS in second. The Motorola DROID X was third followed by the HTC EVO 4G and the HTC DROID Incredible which finished 4th and 5th respectively.

The performance of both the Apple iPhone and Android in Q1 had to do with the launch of the former on Verizon. The carrier sold 2.2 million units of the device by the end of last month. Some of Big Red's customers who had purchased an Android device before Apple's touchscreen phone became available at Verizon, left the green robot to buy the iPhone after waiting patiently for years to see a Verizon branded variant of the phone.

NPD's Ross Rubin said, "Apple and Verizon had a very successful launch of the iPhone 4, which allowed the iPhone to expand its market share that was previously held back by its prolonged carrier exclusivity with AT&T. While some of that growth came at the expense of Android operating system, Android models still accounted for half of all smartphones sold in the quarter."

source: NPD via AppleInsider