AdMob released its May 2010 Mobile Metrics Report today. In addition to giving the latest information on devices and usage share in the U.S. online, the report also looks at emerging trends over the last two years.
The big takeaways should be familiar to mobile stats watchers: iPhone and iOS devices continue to dominate worldwide but Android is making big gains as a platform and experiencing large month-over-month and year-over-year gains, especially in the U.S.
You can check out the entire AdMob report below, but we’re going to touch on some of the highlights.
Device and OS Marketshare Worldwide
On the marketshare front, Apple was the number one device manufacturer worldwide with 30% of all ad requests coming from its products. Nokia was in second place with 23%. While Apple rules in North America, Western Europe and Oceania, Nokia is the leading manufacturer in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
When it comes to operating system, Apple’s iOS was again the leading platform for smartphones worldwide, with 40% of all ad requests (and this included only iPhone devices, not iPod touch or iPad units) but Android is gaining quickly and had 26% of all ad requests worldwide.
You can see from this graph how much Android has grown since August of 2009.
Comparing iOS and Android
In the May report, AdMob does extensive comparisons between iOS and Android. As noted last month, iOS devices are much more diversified with less than half of all iOS devices located in North America. Conversely, 67% of Android devices are in North America, with China coming in second place with 13%.
Looking at the broader global reach, you can see that while the percentage of unique Android devices is catching up to the number of iPhone devices in the US (total iOS numbers are still more than double), from a worldwide perspective, Android still lags behind.
This will change over time, especially as more phones are rolled out overseas and deals are struck with other carriers, but global reach remains Android’s biggest spot for opportunity.
Who Buys Apps?
While the download habits of Android and iPhone users remain similar, iPhone and iPod touch users regularly download paid applications far more often than either Android or webOS apps.
In fact, looking at that data, webOS users buy apps more regularly than Android users. While Android is obviously a much more attractive marketplace for mobile developers, that’s still an interesting note.
As we’ve discussed before, sheer marketshare isn’t the only thing that determines how much a developer or development company will invest in a mobile platform — if that were the case, Symbian development and BlackBerry development would be outpacing iOS and Android. Another important factor in encouraging developers to invest time in a platform is the number of customers willing to buy applications.
In this area, iOS users clearly out pace the other platforms. This of course, feeds the cycle. More developers treat iOS as the top-tier development platform because more users buy applications. That leads to higher quality apps and more sales and so on and so forth.
In many ways, we see Android’s biggest challenge not in gaining marketshare but in competing as an application platform. After all, if you can only pick one platform, many developers will go with the company that has paid out $1 billion to its developers over the last two years. That company is Apple.
It’s Just the Beginning
The overriding them in AdMob’s mobile report is how far the mobile industry has come in just two years. If you compare where we were two or three years ago to where we are today, the landscape is markedly different.
That’s why it’s important to note that no matter what the numbers are showing today, they may not necessarily be indicative of the future. This is an explosive industry with so many growth points, what we see today may be vastly different from what we see in two years.
What do you think about the direction the mobile market is heading? Let us know!
Reviews: Android
More About: admob, android, iOS, ipad, iphone
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