There's something that's just not quite right about all those Android dominating Apple in market share stories.
Despite the fact that Apple only has 15% of the global market, its importance is significantly bigger.
The latest evidence comes from Deutsche Telekom, which announced plans to sell the iPhone at T-Mobile USA this year.
For years, T-Mobile has wanted the iPhone, but Apple refused to make iPhones that ran on T-Mobile's network. It probably wanted more money to do that than T-Mobile was willing to pay. Rather than cave to T-Mobile, the reverse happened, and T-Mobile changed its network to work with iPhones.
Now that T-Mobile, which is only 10% of the U.S. market, has the iPhone Deutsche's Chairman said, "We have now added the final piece to the jigsaw to boost the competitiveness of T-Mobile USA sustainably."
Think about that for a second.
T-Mobile, which was the first partner of Android, thinks that it needs the iPhone to be sustainably competitive.
Earlier in the year, T-Mobile said it lost 700,000 customers in fourth quarter of 2011 because it didn't have the iPhone.
If Android is so popular, and winning over so many customers, then why does T-Mobile need to bend over backwards to get the iPhone? Why does T-Mobile think it can't be sustainably competitive without the iPhone?
The only conclusion we can reach is that Android, despite its big market share gains doesn't have any real traction with normal consumers.
This is a big problem for Google.
We're in year five of Android, and people are still choosing iPhone when they have the chance. And even when they don't have a choice, they're willing to defect from their carrier for an iPhone.
We don't know what's wrong with Android, but whatever it is, Google needs to fix it.
More From Business Insider
