Android and iOS continue to carve up the world

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/08/idc-android-and-ios-continue-to-carve-up-the-world-another-rec/

by srathi • 14 years ago

116 90 14 years ago

engadget.com

xutopia• 14 years ago

I think the most fascinating trend here is that people are not purchasing anything but a smartphone nowadays.

MatthewPhillips3• 14 years ago

Fascinating considering data costs. It's hard to buy a dumb phone from a carrier nowadays though.

coob3• 14 years ago

Which is why a higher percentage of Android phones are not used as smartphones as compared to iOS.

w1ntermute2• 14 years ago

The last time I checked the local Verizon retail store, they didn't even have any dumbphones in stock - the only way to get one was to order online.

Retric• 14 years ago

Nahh, there just ignoring non smartphone sales they still make up 1/3 of the ~419.1 million global quarterly cellphone sales.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=2017015

msy• 14 years ago

As a developer I think the stats that matter are % of web traffic and app sales, which at least from the last I've seen dramatically lag total android handset sales. That may change but my anecdotal experience are that a lot are sold as upgrades without people really engaging with the additional functionality where as iPhones seem to be an intentional choice for that additional functionality.

myko2• 14 years ago

Don't be fooled, I know quite a few people (generally older, 50+) who got their iPhones as upgrades and didn't even realize they had browsers until I showed them.

jusben1369• 14 years ago

I guess the point is though that if you look at Apps sold and web traffic then you're eliminating users from both platforms that may own the phones but aren't really engaged.

coob3• 14 years ago

Don't be fooled by your anecdote vs. actual stats.

bookwormAT• 14 years ago

I think app sales a vastly overrated. In my last 15 years as a software developer, only once did a company pay me to make an application that was sold to people. As a customer, most of the software I use does not cost any money. There are only a few categories where app sales work: mostly consumable items like games or movies. Some tools are doing great as well. But most do not.

Most programs are written for business cases other than getting money from license sales to individuals.

Last year I wrote an Android app for a gambling company that now generates 4.5 million Euro in revenue every single month. And the app is not even in the Play store, you have to download it from a website that is embarrassingly hard to find. And the app can only be used in countries where gamling is legal.

We did not charge 99 cents for the app, and somehow there was money to pay my bills anyway.

Then there is the ebanking app I used today: free. And the hipmunk app I use to search for flights. Free. And the audible app. And the kindle app. And the facebook app. And the ebay app. And the Google Search app. And the wikipedia app. And an information app from my government. And the app that let's me see the TV program.

All free of charge. Still, there is a business model and good money behind almost all of these apps.

Again: there are definitely certain apps that you can sell for money, and statistics about how many people buy apps on each platform are of course interesting.

But app sales are not what makes a platform live or die. What makes a platform live or die is reach.

Android is currently in the hands of most people that own a smartohone. That includes rich people and poor people and those who buy apps and those who don't. If you want to reach people through their smartphones, then you want to make an app that runs on Android.

hkmurakami• 14 years ago

If this was a real money gambling app, then either (a) the odds were stacked against the player by 1-2%, or (b) there was rake (for non house games like poker), so there was no need to charge for the client.

If you think about it, that's how FTP or Poker Stars works. Download a free client, even play for free for play money, earn money on rake once they convert to 'real money' players.

bostonvaulter2• 14 years ago

Do you have any more details about the gambling app? You've piqued my interest. Feel free to send me an email (it's in my profile) if you don't want to share publicly.

signalsignal• 14 years ago

To be fair to the GP this is typically viewed as an entrepreneur's forum and does not typically focus on finding freelance or contract work. Apps can therefore be sold directly to customer by the developer as a sole-proprietor using Apple or Google's distribution platform. Nevertheless, Android does appear to offer its users more in the way of free apps in the anything goes environment that is Google Play.

netcan• 14 years ago

I agree. 1m android devices doesn't relate directly to 1m iphones sales in app sales, app download, use & web browsing.

The direction does matter and android web traffic is definitely where I can see it.

ajross2• 14 years ago

This is almost certainly true, except for the "stats that matter" bit. If you want to sell an app today, iOS is still the platform to target first. But that's not a stable position.

If Android becomes the platform that "everyone" has, then the next disruptive consumer change is, almost by definition, going to happen there. This is largely what happened to the Mac -- the platform that had the best of everything in 1988 was, by 1994, suddenly unable to run all the new toys everyone wanted. When Win95 was released it wasn't even all that technically superior anymore. And by 1998 it was almost dead (and, but for the iPod's success, probably would have died).

guelo• 14 years ago

That anecdotal experience doesn't match mine, all my friends with Androids have plenty of apps installed, a frequent question I hear from new Android users is 'What are some good apps to install?'. If you look at the Facebook app in Google Play[1] it says it has 100-500 million installs, that's a big chunk of all Android devices.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.facebook.k....

ThePherocity7• 14 years ago

I just picked up my first Android phone on the weekend (Galaxy S3), and some parts I really love. Widgets change the way I use my phone. But compared to the iPhone, it's far less intuitive, it's build quality is crap, and I can't make it though a day on a charge. I wish there was another phone maker that had the polish of Apple with the freedom of Android.

MikeKusold• 14 years ago

Most likely the reason that it can't make it through a day without a charge is because of 4G/LTE. If battery life is that important, you can force your phone to only use 3G and you will see much greater life.

ThePherocity7• 14 years ago

I'm in a city without LTE yet for this carrier, so that isn't it. Haven't installed any apps that should be background intensive either. I used to stream music all day from the iTunes match and still have more battery than what I have just listening to previously downloaded music.

kitsune_• 14 years ago

HTC One X? I own one and I'm happy with it. I certainly prefer it over the iPhone.

(Disclaimer, I've owned a iPhone 3GS in the past, and this isn't my first android phone)

sigkill• 14 years ago

When you say build quality is crap, what exactly do you mean? Is it because it doesn't feel "heavy"?

Dove• 14 years ago

Check your battery usage in the setting area. It'll tell you what's been using the battery.

gbog• 14 years ago

Buy another battery and swap them when you are low. Fred Wilson is doing this in the plane, I think he has three batteries.

mrharrison• 14 years ago

Exactly, you don't need to do this with iPhone, this just illustrates the point of unpolished software. Why should I waste my day looking at battery usage for apps. Maybe I should also look at the CPU monitor for half an hour to get an overall understanding of what is happening on the phone, so that I can make a correct decision in turning some apps off in the morning and turn some apps off at lunch etc...

tehaugmenter• 14 years ago

>it's far less intuitive, it's build quality is crap

Sorry that you feel that way. Really, I do.

huggyface6• 14 years ago

I desperately pray for a day when I can look at comments on an Android or iOS story without seeing likely fictitious anecdotes (why does anyone who has ever used an iPhone seems to think they are in some sort of unique, privileged position to pass judgment, as an aside?).

This is a recurring problem that undermines any ability to discuss these platforms without noisy conversations.

Your observations are not meaningful or unique or valuable, nor are your subjective comments (e.g. build quality) interesting. Let everyone who feels some compelling need to inject these useless mini-reviews in every discussion know this.

ThePherocity7• 14 years ago

I was just sharing my experience. What's your problem?

DJNewStyle• 14 years ago

To address your aside, if they're referring to their personal experience with an Android phone and they've also used an iPhone, they're more qualified in passing judgement over someone who hasn't touched both phones. Stop trying to glaze his comment with a brushstroke of snobbery - that is the most irritating quality I encounter in circles such as these.

kunle• 14 years ago

I have a hard time thinking this matters. 68% of smartphones worldwide are Android devices. Close to 70% of profits from smartphones worldwide go to Apple (http://www.bgr.com/2012/08/06/apple-mobile-industry-profit-s...) which doesn't make Android devices.

On pretty much every metric except eyeballs, Android is losing (including the value of eyeballs - advertising doesn't matter if the people seeing your ads cant pay for your product), so why does 68% of market share matter?

hahainternet• 14 years ago

I have no idea how you think this is a relevant point. Clearly people seeing Android ads can afford to buy Androids, as they have 68% market share.

Profit only matters if you own Apple. I'm more concerned with the variety of options I have as a consumer, and the competition between manufacturers driving them to produce better hardware.

mtgx• 14 years ago

It mattered for Microsoft. Once it had 90% market share, every other OS/platform became almost irrelevant in the consumer space.

wklauss• 14 years ago

I think that was an odd situation that had a lot to do about how software was distributed and consumed then.

Even if Android keeps gaining marketshare -lets say it gets to 70/75%- I don't think this will play the same way as Mac/PC did in the 90s. Most of what people do these days with a computer / phone is platform agnostic (web browsing, for instance).

tesseractive• 14 years ago

This involves a pretty dangerous assumption, which is that the current methods of monetizing phones are the only ones that matter -- and it sounds as though you're trying to make an even more unpleasant assumption, which is that wealthy people are the only people that matter.

This is Hacker News -- a site for people who set out to build things that don't exist yet. the ability to target 68% of the world's smartphone-using population seems pretty interesting to me. For example, consider an education platform, as Nicholas Negroponte attempted to with the OLPC project. Whether there's monetization or not, there might be an interesting opportunity there.

Open your mind a little. Not everything is about the profit-making horserace.

enraged_camel• 14 years ago

>>Open your mind a little. Not everything is about the profit-making horserace.

At the end of the day, it's money that makes the world go round. If you're making more profit than your competitors, you're getting ahead, because you have more money for R&D, more money for marketing, more money for buying promising start-ups, and more money for lawsuits.

I mean, the fact that Apple has a war chest of tens of billions of dollars in cash - more than the treasuries of many countries - paints a really bleak and hopeless future for Android.

cooldeal• 14 years ago

So the metric that matters in the web server market is that Microsoft is killing Apache, Nginx by taking a huge percentage of the profits with IIS? It's funny how pereception can be manipulated when you have a bunch of influential bloggers pushing an agenda and talking about statistics that fit their slant.

dannyr2• 14 years ago

Android is very popular in a lot of poor countries which means it's not going to make much money as the IPhone. Even in the US, Android is more popular in the lower-income demographics.

However, smartphones could be life-changing for poor people. They probably won't be able to afford a computer but an Android phone for under $100 is within their reach.

Poor people with smartphones mean they have access to more information and will be able to communicate easier. I've read stories about how basic phones with SMS empowered people in poor countries. They could do much more with smartphones.

So if everything is about the money, yeah, Android is definitely losing.

eli• 14 years ago

Keep in mind that marketshare refers to sales not usage. So it's 68% of smartphones shipped in Q2 2012 were Android.

stevenwei• 14 years ago

Are there similar (recent) numbers for tablets yet? I am curious whether the Nexus 7 & Kindle Fire are putting a dent into the iPad's domination of the tablet market.

Apocryphon• 14 years ago

Does this mean that Android is the Symbian of this generation of phones?

enjo2• 14 years ago

Android's growth was completely predictable for anyone who was intimately familiar with Symbian. I'd say that Android is much more the "Series 60" of this generation. It's the same model (albeit more open) that Nokia rode to market dominance.

spiralpolitik3• 14 years ago

What would be interesting to see is how that 68% is sliced. How much of that % has access to the official Google Marketplace, How much of that % are non Google approved phones etc. Those numbers give would give developers a better sense of what the potential market size is like, and help identify gaps in the market.

The Android share is somewhat like the DOS market at the beginning of the nineties. While DOS commanded a sizable share verses Mac OS, it was broken down into 3 variants (MSDOS, DRDOS, PCDOS) with sub versions (MSDOS 5, DRDOS 6 etc). While they were mostly compatible they had enough differences to cause developers headaches.

diminish• 14 years ago

what would really be interesting to see is how much of ios browsing comes from ipads; cause iphone screen is quite small to do anything; forget browsing

bobbles• 14 years ago

A lot of the browsing that I do from my iPhone is via either the AlienBlue reddit app or viewing HackerNews through the Pulse app.

As they strip everything out of the web-pages except the text content (most of the time) it makes reading stuff on the web pretty decent.

DonnyV• 14 years ago

Yes but how did MSDOS at the end of the game make out? .....yes market share matters.

spiralpolitik3• 14 years ago

MSDOS technically won out because Microsoft married Windows and MSDOS together to get Windows 95 killing off the other DOS variants (and the alternative Windows shells like Norton) in the process.

Also remember that Apple's reward for losing was ending up the most profitable PC vendor so things didn't end up so bad for them.

pjmlp• 14 years ago

And the way this is going, similarly to how Apple lost the market share to DOS, the same will happen with Android.

Android and iOS continue to carve up the world

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