Sometimes numbers hide the true story. In the world of smartphones, the volume of Android sales tower over the rival iOS platform. Android accounts for over eighty percent of the market, with iOS a distant second (Kantar Worldpanel). With that measure Android is 'winning' but that's not enough.
There are other numbers which should be considered as important as market share. Profit share is good place to start. Not only does this reverse the position of the two platforms, but gives Apple an even larger section of the market with well over ninety percent of smartphone profits flowing to Cupertino. Income through the app store is another huge win for Tim Cook's team. When you look at a collection of economic indicators, Android struggles to match iOS.
Nevertheless Android remains in touch with the top of these tables thanks to a single company. Without Samsung, Android would be left with a raft of smaller manufacturers (such as Huawei) providing the occasional point of interest at the high-end, and a fleet of budget handsets running on low-margin hardware bulking up the sales. Apple rules the high-end space, Samsung fights the good fight, and everyone else is elsewhere.
Without Samsung, Android would be a far poorer place.
At times various manufacturers have taken a serious swing at the smartphone market with an Android device, and laid claim to being 'the best' device on the platform. Very few of them have found success, and those that did have struggled to maintain that success. Sony is a good example where. While it took a number of iterations to sort out design issues, the Xperia line of smartphones offered a high-end Android experience that captured critical acclaim but that was not followed up by consumer success.
Motorola has come closest to challenging Samsung in recent years, but its passage through the hands of a number of parent companies has left it without a coherent story or strategy over the last two years. The recent Moto handsets were solid performers, but are far from setting sales and income figures alight.
Google's Nexus devices are rightly held up as technical marvels that sit on the cutting edge of software design, but the Mountain View marketed handsets are nowhere close to selling in similar numbers to the Galaxy handsets. Nexus excels as a choice for developers and the geekerati, but it's yet to be seen as a strong consumer brand.
Strip out Samsung, and Android's strengths lie in Chinese manufacturers such as Huawei, and the domination of low-cost budget handsets in BRIC territories. That guarantees volume, but offers little in the way of profit, image, or consumers willing to spend heavily in the third-party ecosystem to reward developers and advertisers.
Samsung offers an answer to all these questions, and has done for many years. The South Korean company's innovation is applied to flagship handsets that sell in numbers equivalent to the iPhone. The Galaxy S7 family (of the S7, the S7 Edge, and the Note 7) have similar specifications, are clearly at the top of the performance tree and are much more than 'black boxes that run Android'.
That drive for design is backed up by a marketing budget that keeps the handset at the forefront of consumers minds. 'Galaxy vs iPhone' is the established pattern in many countries (and many editorials) but Samsung is willing to invest to stay in the lead role.
Thanks to some risky decisions and rationalisation on the production line, Samsung's mobile division has helped turn the declining income and profits of the company after two years of falling financials. The S7 family has arrested that fall, and while the markets still have to see how this works out over the second half of the year, the signs are promising.
Of course Samsung is bulking up sales with its mid- and low-range handsets, but they all benefit from trickle-down marketing of the flagship handsets. Samsung is willing to spend on its ecosystem to keep it on top of the Android competition, and to remain in touch with Apple.
The Android ecosystem should be thankful that Samsung has been able to maintain its dominant role, without it Google's platform would be far weaker in the face of the focused profit-driven approach from Apple. It is a balanced relationship though... Samsung needs Android as much as Android needs Samsung. Android provides a commonality to Samsung's devices, the volume of Android devices in the market guarantees that third-party apps will continue to be developed for Samsung's handsets, and it gives users confidence when buying a Galaxy (at any price point) that it will do what they want it to do.
At the heart of Android's success lies this relationship which binds the two companies tightly together. If that relationship were to be diluted, the consequences for both parties would be painful. Google knows it. Samsung knows it. And so does Apple...
Now read what the internet makes of Samsung's latest device, the Galaxy Note 7.
