"Android has been competing quite favorably with the iPhone in hundreds of other markets that lack carrier exclusivity."
I always thought that Android was a second-class citizen in places where the iPhone had been out for a while with no carrier exclusivity. Do you have data to the contrary?
Android is great. The branded, bloated crap that Verizon sells on their Android-based phones is awful. Apples to apples, the pure Android experience is very comparable to the iPhone. But comparing the products as they are delivered to consumers, the iPhone has a huge advantage in that Apple refused to let the carriers ruin the user experience.
Android has been competing quite favorably with the iPhone in hundreds of other markets that lack carrier exclusivity. I think they'll be just fine.
Don't forget that there are going to be LTE capable Android devices long before (apparently) we see an iPhone version.