New devices help iOS steal back enterprise share from Android; breakdown is 85% iPhone 6, 15% iPhone 6 Plus
Apple has managed to reverse a recent trend of declining quarterly enterprise share for device activations, thanks to its new smartphones. The breakdown for businesses buying …
Context & Ripple Effects
This report lands mid-way through a see-saw battle for enterprise activations. Just a quarter earlier, iOS had dropped to 67% enterprise share in Q2 2014 while Android climbed to 32%, the low point of a multi-quarter slide from the ~76% of SMB activations Apple captured in 2013. The iPhone 6 launch is the first data point showing that decline reversing — and by early 2015 the recovery holds, with iOS back up to 73% as Android falls to 25%. Windows Phone, meanwhile, is a constant 1% footnote throughout, making this a two-horse race.
First-order effects
- Apple's enterprise activation share reverses its quarterly decline, with new-device buyers overwhelmingly choosing the standard iPhone 6 (85%) over the larger iPhone 6 Plus (15%) — signaling most business buyers still prioritize pocketability and price over screen size.
- Android loses enterprise momentum at exactly the moment it had been gaining, stalling its push into corporate fleets that had been eroding iOS's dominance through 2014.
Second-order effects
- The strong iPhone 6/6 Plus enterprise uptake pressures Android OEMs to compete harder on large-screen business devices and pricing, while validating Apple's bigger-screen strategy against the phablet segment Android previously owned.
- Enterprise mobility vendors and IT departments recalibrate device-support priorities around iOS, reinforcing the app-and-management ecosystem advantage that makes iOS stickier for the next procurement cycle.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, enterprise smartphone share becomes cyclical around each flagship refresh rather than a one-directional shift toward Android — meaning platform wars are fought at product-cycle cadence, not secular takeover.
- Windows Phone's flat ~1% enterprise presence points toward a structurally two-platform mobile market, where third ecosystems struggle to find any corporate beachhead.
The trend: Enterprise mobile platform share increasingly swings on flagship hardware cycles, with big-screen iPhones blunting Android's phablet-led advance into corporate fleets.