Google subsidiary AdMob put out its mobile metrics report for April 2010 with some surprising and not so surprising results. The problem with these kind of market share reports is that they are built on ad requests from a particular ad network, not on any retails numbers or so, so please take this with a grain of salt. Now this is a Google report, so I assume it doesn't favor Apple.
Here's the report, discussed: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/gadgetreviews/admob-iphone-os-devices-lead-android-os-products-in-us-with-ratio-of-2-to-1/15127 The key points to me are: - In the U.S., there are more than twice as many iPhone OS devices compared to Android devices; worldwide, it's about 3.5 times as many. People often forget the iPod Touch as the "entry level drug" for the iPhone - low price, no contracts. And then there's the iPad, estimated to sell better than Macs already, with demand not slowing down after the launch. And why is there no popular Android music / video player? Is it the lack of desktop media management software that at least some people would still want (DSL/cable download is still faster by an order of magnitude compared to mobile download and has much less bandwidth limits)? Or the lack of a global music / video / book / audio book store for Android (don't say "Amazon" because the video store is U.S. only, and I believe Audible books can't be played on Android). - 75% of all Android phones were sold in the U.S. This is the inverse of Nokia, by far the global smartphone leader, but with little market presence in the U.S. Is it the "buy one, get one free" promotions of Verizon? Is it the Android vendors have weak or weakened brands globally, compared to Apple? Are consumers outside the U.S. more worried about the, shall we say, mixed Google privacy record? To highlight the data gathering issues - AdMob puts the number of iPhone OS devices at 40.8 million worldwide. Now Apple put the number of iPhones and iPod Touches at 85 million in April, and they sold some more plus a million iPads after that. So even if you take out all the devices not in use anymore, it shouldn't be such a huge difference, especially since old iPhones are still in strong demand (in many countries they are sold exclusively by a carrier but can be unlocked after two years and used on other mobile networks). Hey, I still paid 71 Euro / $87 for an old iPod Touch 1G with 8 GB on ebay (the oldest and slowest one, introduced Sep 2007) that I needed for testing. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
