Analysts: iOS growth lags, and iPad is losing market share

On the eve of Apple’s big iPhone announcement, we’ve got some interesting stats for your perusal. First, there’s the iOS-versus-Android news: The OSes are fairly close when it comes to growth, with Android taking a slight advantage. But Android still trumps iOS on market share by 7 percent.

In toto, we’re lookin’ at around 140 million smartphone users in the U.S. for 2013, up from 121.4 million in 2012. Of those smartphones, 38.3 percent will be sold by Apple (up from 36.5 percent last year) and 45.9 percent will be running the Android operating system (up from 43.5 percent).

These numbers come to us from eMarketer, a digital intelligence firm.

More tidbits:

The iPad is actually starting to lose market share to smaller, cheaper tablets like the Kindle and some of the more lightweight Android models. In 2011, Apple took home an 83 percent slice of the U.S. tablet pie. That figure plummeted to just 59 percent last year and is expected to drop even further in 2013, down to just 54.5 percent. At this rate, the company’s majority take won’t last long.

Last year, around a quarter of all Americans used a tablet at least once a month. This year, that number has risen to a whopping 40 percent.

On average, Americans will spend an average of one hour each on tablets and smartphones — that’s an average of two hours per day per person on mini-computers.

Around the world in 2013, eMarketer estimates 1.4 billion people will use smartphones, and that number will increase to 1.74 billion in 2014. Gee, whiz!