Android is #1

NPD reports that Android is now the #1 platform for smartphones in the US. 33% Android, 28% BlackBerry, 22% iPhone. And that’s including iPhone 4 pre-orders.

Meanwhile, Nielsen confirms that Android has beaten iPhone,  though they have Android still lagging slightly behind BlackBerry:

Canalys have a slightly different spin on the same result, citing Android’s 886% YTY growth rate.

Fanboys on MacWorld (who should just give in and rename themselves iPhoneWorld) have been desperately saying that the iPhone 4 is going to turn things around any moment now. However, as noted, NPD’s figures include the iPhone 4 pre-orders, and the popular HTC EVO and T-Mobile MyTouch 3G Slide didn’t start selling until right at the end of the surveyed period, just like the iPhone 4.

Also interesting is that while existing iPhone users’ professed loyalty remains formidable, Android users are almost as enthusiastic about their chosen platform. The big losers are RIM.

On which note, BlackBerry OS 6 has been launched. It looks as though they’ve finally provided a proper set of widgets for developers and a proper web browser. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s a case of too little, too late. If they had delivered OS 6 a year ago (and made their SDK multiplatform), I might still be using a BlackBerry–but now? Too late, I switched. The new OS will slow their decline, but they’re still playing catch-up to their competitors. I hope they’ll be able to continue keeping iOS in third place, but I’m not optimistic about their chances.

[By the way, don’t bother logging in to comment that the numbers are flawed because Android is sold on lots of phones but there are only three models of iPhone, or that iPad and iPod sales aren’t included. This is a comparison of smartphone platforms, because platforms are what developers are interested in. If the fragmentation argument was valid, nobody would develop for Windows and Mac OS X would be #1, because the most popular model of Mac outsells any single one of the millions of models of Windows PC out there.]