

Android outstripping iOS in ad impressions and device market share - amirmc
http://www.theequitykicker.com/2011/08/15/android-outstripping-ios-in-ad-impressions-and-device-market-share/

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bignoggins
ad impressions are meaningless. eCPM in mobile ads has been on a precipitous
decline. As an example, last year ad revenue made up ~15% of my total revenues
and my eCPM was around $3 (with paid apps and in app purchasing making up the
rest). This year? It's barely a rounding error (< 1%) and my eCPMs are ~ $.10.
Other developers are reporting the same thing across the board. Granted this
is for iOS and not android, but I can't imagine android being a whole lot
better.

To make an analogy with the web, I think mobile ads are pretty much stuck in
the Yahoo era. It only works because there are new suckers to replace the old
ones. Almost all of the indie developers I know that have tried mobile
advertising have said it doesn't give you a good ROI.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but to me it's clear that the future for
app monetization is paid apps and in app purchases. If you are going to rely
on # of ad impressions to choose your platform you are looking at the wrong
metric.

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tomelders
It feels to me like the conversation around mobile platforms is anchored in
the past. It seems analysts and pundits can't function properly in a world
where markets are diverse, and so every day someone somewhere comes up with a
metric which is then presented as one platforms domination another platform.
Like this one.

And the market for consumers and investors suffers as a result. These are not
the "Windows vs Mac" days. This is not a "Google vs Apple" contest, no matter
how hard analysts and pundits wish they were.

I personally don't care about stats like this because they tell us nothing.
They look like they do, because you can pretty much extrapolate to your hearts
content to make information like this positive or negative, and only
confirmation bias influences which way you lean.

I'd prefer it if Analysts and pundits talked more about forward progress in
terms of hardware & software and real life product launches, which would make
their ramblings useful to consumers and investors.

With the exception of a rare few, they're basically just white noise.

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ethank
I hate articles like this. It's like saying "this just in, four cylinder
Yamaha motors are selling much better than BMW 328i's"

Of course they are! Honda, Toyota, Mitsubishi use Yamaha motors.

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atirip
So Google is doing well charging for those ads and showing them to people who
never buy a thing?

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RexRollman
Maybe what's really going on is that iPhone users are more likely to buy full
version, non-ad supported applications than Android users are?

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stephen_g
Is it really surprising that an operating system used by many companies is
used more than an operating system used by just one?

I'd like to see the OS share total including smartphones along with tablets
and devices like the iPod Touch though...

~~~
Pewpewarrows
I've seen this argument several times over, but it doesn't make it any more
sound. If iOS was offered on, say, three types of smartphones simultaneously
(instead of just the one new one at a time now), that wouldn't make its sales
triple (not even close).

Having more options doesn't necessarily increase sales. In some cases it
drives down sales, because of a confused consumer. If Apple all of a sudden
offered three different flavors of the iPhone 5, yes sales would probably
increase a bit because of options being present that previously didn't exist.
But for the most part you'd see the existing singular iPhone's sales merely
split to all three options. We saw this with the unveiling of the Verizon
iPhone. Yes, sales spiked for a short period of time, but at the end of the
day it didn't cause iPhone's average trend of sales to increase more than it
was with it only on AT&T. The people that wanted a phone with iOS, got a phone
with iOS, only now they didn't have to switch to AT&T to get it.

And I'm sure you would like to see OS total share across every type of
electronics device under the sun, because iOS is in an entire sector of the
market that Android is not: MP3 players. The results would obviously favor
Apple.

~~~
Anechoic
> _We saw this with the unveiling of the Verizon iPhone._

This isn't really a fair comparison since so many of the VZ iPhone target
market may be locked into contracts. (even still, the iPhone is VZ best
selling phone)

> _If Apple all of a sudden offered three different flavors of the iPhone 5,
> yes sales would probably increase a bit because of options being present
> that previously didn't exist._

What happened to iPod marketshare when Apple released the iPod mini? (again
not a perfect analogy, but related).

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tzs
> The best Android phones still don’t match the iPhone (and as I said on
> Friday my next phone will again be an iPhone), but with the scale advantages
> Android now enjoys I think it will only be a matter of time before their
> phones are the best

I don't understand what he means by scale advantage.

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oscardelben
Neither do I. I think he's implying that if more people will buy android then
android will get better because of it.

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mooism2
Which would make sense if Google got more income for every copy of Android
sold. But they don't.

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Tichy
Sure they do - Google is the default search engine on most of those devices.
Granted, not enforced, but still.

~~~
LargeWu
It's also the default search engine on Safari in iOS, so I'm not sure there's
a point to be made here.

~~~
Kylekramer
That can change whenever Apple feels like it. Not so with Android. With mobile
exploding, Android is excellent insurance for the future.

~~~
mooism2
Android handset manufacturers can change search provider whenever they feel
like it. Aren't a few already sold preset to Bing?

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allwein
Is it really that surprising that the ad impressions on a platform where the
majority of the popular apps are free and ad-driven is outpacing the ad
impressions on a platform where the majority of the popular apps are paid-for
and thus don't feature adds?

Until there's some parity between the Android Market and the Apple App Store,
such that developers can easily accept payments from every supported country,
then reports like this are going to continue to be meaningless.

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jonknee
I have AdMob running on a mobile version of a website I run (a Crossword
focused site FWIW) and the eCPM is horrible. Pennies. Yesterday on the same
site the difference between AdMob and AdSense was an AdMob eCPM at about 10%
the AdSense eCPM. I don't think this is necessarily Google's fault (I mean
Apple isn't exactly killing it with iAd), but in general I get the idea
there's a huge glut of inventory.

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banderson623
Interesting. I wonder if Android users see more ads per use-hour based on the
Android eco system's revenue model than other mobile os's. ...I have no data
to back up my proposition, just a thought.

