With the popularity of Samsung Android phones exploding, one analytics company is wondering if another dualopoly is on the horizon.
Flurry Analytics took one look at the rising popularity of Samsung Android devices, its Galaxy line in particular, and wondered if Samsung will someday dominate the Android space. Android, in turn, would have to dominate the smartphone space. Samsung is certainly taking off:
Microsoft (MSFT) and Intel (INTC) became the dominant PC manufacturing partners in the ’90s as IBM PC clone makers wiped out just about every other platform. Apple (AAPL) and to a lesser extent Linux/Unix survived that era, though most of the Macintosh and *nix products did end up using Intel processors. With the advent of the Smartphone, a new processor architecture, ARM, is now running away with the smartphone market powering just about every device made.
Smartphones are rapidly becoming the dominant way people get online.
Samsung, a Korean mega-conglomerate, not only makes phones but also builds ARM processors for companies like Apple. They also build some of the best displays, RAM, and most of the internals of their phones, giving them advantages over other players.
The second part of the dualopoly, Google’s (GOOG) Android, becoming the dominant smartphone OS is still far from becoming a reality (though if they have another year like last year, it wouldn’t surprise many).
So will people some day call phones ‘Samdroids’ the way they call PCs ‘Wintels?’
Flurry Analytics
