Tesco Mobile Reveals Android Sales Growth

Tesco Mobile has revealed that its sales of Android smartphones have surpassed iPhone sales for the first time. Prior to Christmas, the MVNO says, iPhones were outselling Android devices by two-to-one. But January saw a rapid increase in Android smartphone sales, resulting in like-for-like sales of Android and iPhone, and in February, sales of Android smartphones overtook sales of iPhones.

Tesco Mobile attributes the rise of Android smartphones to affordability, fuelled by its range of competitive deals on Android handsets. The sales trend also underpins recent statistics released by industry analyst Gartner that show global Android sales grew by nearly 900 per cent from 2009. Gartner also reported that 67.2m Android-based units were sold in 2010, accounting for 22.7 per cent of the market.

“These sales are a useful barometer for smartphone trends,” says Graham Harris, CEO of Tesco Telecoms and Tesco Mobile. “There is a lot of choice in the market, and as a result, consumers are driving healthy competition between rival operating systems…However, we commend this competition, as we see this as helping to drive consumer choice and flexibility.”