Apple was helped along by solid year-end sales of its new iPhones and iPads, which propped up its share of global computing platforms to 18% in the fourth quarter, up from 13% in the previous quarter.
But year-over-year numbers tell another story: Android has run away with the global computing market.
The global computing market, as we're defining it here, combines shipments for smartphones, tablets, and PCs.
Windows and Android's shipment shares fell off slightly from the previous quarter as they gave way to Apple's year-end surge.
- Android's share of the global computing market fell to 59% in the fourth quarter, compared to 61% in the third quarter.
- Windows captured 21% of the market in the fourth quarter, down from 24% in the third quarter. (Windows combines Windows Phone and Windows desktop.)
But year-over-year data shows that Apple is actually slipping, while Android is growing by leaps and bounds.
- Compared to a year prior (fourth quarter of 2012), Apple's share actually fell off two percentage points. That means Apple failed to keep pace with the rest of the market.
- Android's share actually increased a significant 13 percentage points, from 46% in the fourth quarter of 2012 to 59% in the fourth quarter of 2013.
- Fourth quarter 2013 market share for Windows is down seven percentage points year-over-year, suffering from its ties moribund PC market. Windows held a 28% market share in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Nearly 87% of total Windows unit shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013 were PCs.
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Let's look at the mobile computing market, which includes tablets and smartphones but leaves out PCs (see chart, below).
- Apple's share grew five percentage points sequentially in the fourth quarter of 2013, but still slipped from 26% to 21% year-over-year.
- Android still held on to 73% of the global mobile computing market in the fourth quarter, that's up from 64% in the same quarter the year prior. In sequential terms, Android lost five percentage points in the quarter.
The fourth quarter was gearing up to be an important turning point for Apple. It spent most of 2013 sitting on its hands, sacrificing market share while waiting on the mid-September release of its new devices.
Turns out, Android device shipments still out-muscled Apple's new iPhones and iPads in year-over-year terms.
Android's new advantage is that it has also grown diversified, and isn't too reliant on any single manufacturer. Samsung, the Android stalwart, actually endured a shipments decline in the fourth quarter for the first time. Despite this, Android was propped up by continued growth out of China.
