This Is The Chart That Should Have Apple A Little Bit Worried

Why does it matter that Apple only has a sliver of the smart phone market? After all, it's earning the majority of the market's profits, right? So, what's the big deal?

Well, the reason smart phone market share matters is that in technology, profits tend to accrue over time to the dominant platform. What happens is one platform becomes the standard, and developers focus their attention on that platform. As they focus on that platform, they abandon the other platform, and it becomes a second tier player. When that happens, consumers become less interested.

So far, the iPhone, even with a small share of the market has been the most popular for developers. That may be about to change. This chart from BI Intelligence shows that developers around the world are switching their focus to Android.

If this pattern continues, then the big fears about market share could be realized and Apple could turn into a second tier platform as developers work on iOS second.