Android Keeps Growing, But iPhone Remains King with Developers [REPORT]

Mobile advertising firm Millennial Media has just released its Mobile Mix report for May 2010, highlighting some of the latest trends in mobile and connected devices. As other mobile reports have indicated, the overall smartphone market continues to grow with Google’s Android platform gaining lots of ground.

According to Millennial’s report, while Apple’s share of the connected and mobile device market has decreased nearly 10% month-over-month, it still remains the leading device manufacturer for ad requests in the U.S. Android, comparatively, has seen month-over-month and year-over-year gains in ad impressions; Millennial shows an 2.4% increase month-over-month in ad impressions overall, according to the top 15 device manufacturers.

Still, in the overall realm of connected devices, Apple still accounted for 48% of all impressions, taking a nearly 30% lead over its closest competitor, RIM. Android’s share of impressions rose 5%, representing 15% of the total U.S. smartphone OS Mix.

Check out this breakdown of connected devices, feature phones and smartphones, as well as the smartphone breakdown by OS:

Developers Still Singularly Focused

While more mobile developers are looking at designing for more than one platform, in practice — at least according to Millennial’s figures — 90% are still focusing on just one platform. This makes sense if you consider that most mobile development companies are still comprised of small teams, or often a single developer. The mobile app development world is moving at a breakneck pace and its difficult to justify the time required to adapt an app for another platform if you have a limited number of resources — especially for developers who don’t have a solid revenue strategy.

Of the 90% who were focused on a single application platform, 56% were focused on Apple devices and 29% on Android. That 29% Android-only figure is promising because it shows that the platform can have a life beyond just iPhone ports. We’ve talked to many developers who either develop for one or both platforms and what we tend to find is that Android is becoming increasingly important for developers, but the iPhone is still the number one priority. Having a solid base of dedicated Android-only developers who are willing to invest in putting out high quality applications is something that the Android Market really needs.

This is underscored by the ranking of top mobile app channels, as ranked by revenue. The number one channel was games, accounting for 58% of all app revenue on Millennial’s network. This matches other data points from similar studies that show that consumers are more willing to pay for games than any other type of mobile application.

Right now, games on the iPhone are significantly stronger — both in quantity and in quality — than Android. With Froyo and some of the other Android SDK improvements, we hope to see this change, but this is an area that is important for the bottom line of many developers.

With the recent release of the Sprint EVO and the impending release of the next generation DROID and iPhone 4, it will be interesting to see how the smartphone landscape looks in the next few months.

Tags: android, iphone, smartphones