Android crushing its competitors in South Africa’s mobile race
Android is by far the most popular mobile operating system in South Africa, with far more users than Apple’s iOS, BlackBerry, and Windows, combined.
Vodacom’s latest statistics show they have 5.41 million Android users on its network – a growth rate of more than 1 million users in three months.
This growth was partly fueled by the availability of low-cost Android devices in South Africa, including Vodacom’s Smart Kicka smartphone.
BlackBerry was ranked second with 2.43 million users. However, BlackBerry’s user base declined by over 200,000 over the last quarter.
Apple iOS was ranked third with 978,000 users, and Windows fourth with 536,000 users. Both these mobile platforms showed growth over the last three months.
The table below provides an overview of Vodacom subscribers by platform.
| Operating system | Device by type (in thousands) | |||||
| – | Sep-13 | Mar-14 | Jun-14 | Sep-14 | Dec-14 | Mar-15 |
| iOS (smartphones and tablets) | 650 | 785 | 775 | 805 | 914 | 978 |
| BlackBerry | 3,100 | 3,030 | 2,895 | 2,760 | 2,650 | 2,434 |
| Android (smartphones and tablets) | 1,450 | 2,190 | 2,560 | 3,362 | 4,314 | 5,413 |
| Windows | 270 | 375 | 410 | 449 | 476 | 536 |
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