Android has finally conquered the smartphone market in the United States. Smartphones running Google’s Android operating system accounted for one-third of all smartphones purchased in the April-June period. Terapeak Market Research confirms this and drills deeper into the smartphone market. The average eBay sale price for an Android phone is $305 dollars and the rate of successful sales is 70%. Compare this to the average price of a Blackberry device, $103 dollars with a successful sales rate of only 33.5%, and it’s easy to see how Android has edged its way to the top. The graph below compares the sales trends of the two brands over a 90 day period.

Terapeak can also provide insight into consumer interest. By examining the top searches on eBay we find that the iPhone is the third most-popular search overall. Despite this high ranking, Apple still lags behind Android and Blackberry in phone sales. But with eBay and every brick and mortar electronics retailer selling premium-priced iPhone accessories by the truckload, and the booming app store, it’s clear that Apple is interested in more than just selling phones.

A quick glance at Terapeak Market Research could have allowed one to predict this news well before it was reported. The chart above lists the top four searches on eBay.com. Apple products occupy three of these coveted spaces and the iPhone holds strong in third amid controversy.

In the midst of what has been called “Antenna-gate,” an antenna malfunction with iPhone 4, Terapeak provides a clear indication that interest in the iPhone isn’t slowing down. As eBay is an ideal sample market to draw insight from, it’s easy to predict a company’s revenues when they hold rank in the top search positions.

Yesterday, Apple revealed a smaller and simpler iPod Shuffle amid great hoopla.  The new product features more storage, a much smaller form factor, and a feature called “VoiceOver” which rather usefully, given the lack of a screen, tells you what song is playing and who the artist is.  Priced to move at $79 USD, this is a clear reinvestment in a market that has paid off handsomely for Apple.  This chart covering 26 months (to Feb 2009) of sales on eBay reveals that the smaller iPod models have grown to address a broader market than their older, larger siblings, despite the multi-year market lead of earlier iPods:

It also reveals a sharp gender bias — with women favouring smaller, more lightweight and inexpensive iPods to their larger, more feature-rich and large-screened bretheren.  These numbers show that there is a clear and specific market for women in the portable MP3 player marketplace, and Apple has it:  the company is virtually untouched in this segment among its competitors, except for a smattering of far less-hyped offerings like the Samsung Pebble.

Analysis after Apple’s numbers were announced last year revealed that Apple’s iPod growth numbers were beginning to flatten.  The Nano seems to a clear killer, cutting through the middle with both a small size and a screen, but iPod Shuffle sales reveal a most compelling gender bias: the gap between the Shuffle (47% female) and the original iPod (28%) is eye-opening.

So should competitors be eyeing the ladies’ market for portable music players?  Will we be seeing more pink iPods at the low end of the range in our near future?  We will let you know.