Verizon to Sell iPhones. What it Means for Radio.

The announcement that Verizon will begin selling Apple’s iPhone has created consider buzz, but most pundits missed the bigger story.

Take a look at a graph put together by the New York Times. It shows the penetration of Android (shown in yellow) and Apple (shown in salmon). Click to enlarge:

                                                                             
 
Follow-up stories citing the Times article mostly focused on the Android/Apple or Verison/ATT&T battles. Few noted the much larger bands of blue representing the overwhelming majority of mobile phone subscribers.

Those large swaths of blue on the graph tell us that the vast majority of mobile subscribers still do not own either Android or Apple phones.

This notion that vast numbers of people are listening to Pandora or Slacker or even broadcast streams on their mobile phones is pure fantasy because most people can't.

Maybe one day it will come true, but right now only a small fraction of mobile phone subscribers can listen to Internet radio on their phones, and an even smaller fraction actually do.