CLICK to read article on Technolog"The best-selling phone in America is the iPhone, according to two different reports. But the same research shows Android is the top-selling OS, and it continues unimpeded in its march to worldwide domination. Meanwhile, BlackBerry's Research In Motion is getting stepped on, and dumb phones — those not blessed with any of the so-called 'smart phone' OSes — may well be headed for extinction. The question is, will Android keep it together at the top, or spread itself too thin?
Selling the top phone — not just smart phone but phonephone — should be good news for Apple. But compared to the quarter that ended a year ago, Apple's market share declined by 21 percent against Android. RIM's share drop is a lot worse, though: It's down 53 percent compared to a year ago.
'Much of Android's quarterly share growth came at the expense of RIM, rather than Apple,' said Ross Rubin, executive director of industry analysis for NPD, in a press release. 'The HTC EVO 4G, Motorola Droid X and other new high-end Android devices have been gaining momentum at carriers that traditionally have been strong RIM distributors, and the recent introduction of the BlackBerry Torch has done little to stem the tide.'
With nobody excited about new BlackBerry products, the best thing RIM can do is lower prices on its older more venerated handsets. Its Curve series, the No. 2 selling phone in the U.S., is listed at several carriers for the low low price of ... free. At least, with a two-year contract.
The iPhone beat another free-ish phone, the LG Cosmos, a messaging phone. As the only non-'smart' phone in NPD's top 5, and one that only got there through heavy-duty subsidies, another message is clear: Dumb phones are dying. But that might just mean more Android-powered phones of modest IQ being handed out for free or next to nothing.
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