

Android gaining on Apple, says report - coderdude
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/android_gaining_on_apple_says_report.php

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pixelbath
Though this report mentions RIM numbers may be slightly low, looking at
Gartner's data (<http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1372013>), their
numbers are excessively low.

Where AdMob has RIM below 2%, Gartner has RIM above iOS, and just below
Symbian in numbers.

Anecdotal: Our company was using RIM as our corporate provider until last
year's "complete outage" fiascos, at which point our CEO decided it was iPhone
time. It seems like many other companies who aren't as agile would still be
stuck with RIM at the corporate level, so these numbers seem pretty far off-
base.

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enjo
This is really a snapshot of Admobs ad-network traffic, which is really low on
RIM devices that don't support a particularly robust app market.

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jherdman
Android is a "commodity" OS, if you will. That is, anyone can build a device
and put Android on it. Given that Android isn't complete shit and that people
ARE building devices and using it, this trend is rather expected.

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hazmattron
It's the Windows OS effect, this time in the smartphone market. Except that
Android is free, so it could potentially gain an even vaster userbase.

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jherdman
This is an interesting point, though what we have with Android is something
slightly different in that there's a certain degree of individual vendor
responsibility to provide updates for your device as needed. Thus vendors will
compete on a few different fronts:

* Hardware. I.e. design, reliability, technical specifications * Commitment. E.g. providing firmware updates * Marketing. * Icing. By this I mean the vendor's "above and beyond" software offerings, such as a more polished UI, add on software packages, etc.

I have to admit that I find Android exciting as an economical experiment. I am
not, however, an Android device user. For me Apple's relentless attention to
detail has kept me captive (for now).

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megaduck
Looking at the raw numbers from Apple and Google (not AdMob's!), Android's
supremacy is looking increasingly inevitable.

At the Droid X launch, Google claimed 160,000 activations a day, which
translates to a run rate of almost 60 million devices a year. More
importantly, the Android growth rate looks like an exponential curve up at
this point. Google's announcements show a 60% growth in Android over the past
3 _months_.

In the long run, Apple simply can't match those numbers. Their install base
will give them the lead for another year, and their total unit sales will
continue to grow, but the marketshare future looks like it belongs to Android.

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tzs
"but the marketshare future looks like it belongs to Android"

That's fine with Apple. They don't mind having a smaller market share than
someone else, as long as they have a big share in that subset part of the
market that actually makes money.

How much does Google make on each Android phone sold by someone else?

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stanleydrew
Google makes $0 on those sales directly. But I don't think they're losing
sleep over that. They don't want to make money selling hardware. They think
hardware should be a commodity.

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jokermatt999
I'm kind of tired of AdMob numbers being trotted out to show Android is
gaining. As others have pointed out, AdMob is primarily an Android thing, so
of course they'll see growth. I love to see Android growing and succeeding,
but these numbers are basically useless as a comparison. Perhaps once iAds is
out, comparing the iAds numbers and AdMob numbers could explain some stuff,
but for now they can't paint a good picture of the numbers for Apple.

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KirinDave
I am not sure if this data is right or wrong, but I think AdMob has a severe
conflict of interest reporting on this issue.

Even if they were not acquired by google, the upcoming existence of the iAd
system (and its restrictions) means that they have a strong incentive to
downplay vendors like RIM and Apple.

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alanh
Indeed. Title ought to be: "Android Gaining on Apple, Says Report _From Google
Acquisition_ "

I can't believe this isn't in the first bleeding sentence. Unprofessional,
ReadWriteWeb!

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gaiusparx
AdMob report on market share will not be as representative from July 01 when
iAds goes live. Since AdMobers are now Googlers, expect to hear from them
monthly that 'Android is gaining market' when many iPhone developers are
expected to move their ads to iAds and out of AdMob radar. To me its
meaningless data even though its common sense that Android is gaining market
share due to its commodity nature with multiple vendors, and a recent version
that is finally competitive. Tech blogs should publish reports from
independent source with better data.

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sabj
Here's my question. This really feels like a platform wars flashback to Mac v.
PC, and the coming numerical advantages to Android combined with the fact that
it's arguably on or close to the same level of iPhone for performance,
usability, etc (or is getting close) really do make it seem inevitable that it
should swallow whole much of the smartphone market.

Question next. If Android : PC :: iPhone : Mac, where does that put Apple? I'm
not convinced that that will be the case, since Apple's margins will shrink
once it moves past exclusivity and, all things aside, smartphone prices remain
quite high; I don't imagine that there will be a serious need to have the kind
of per-unit pricing differentials seen on say, a PC laptop vs. a Macbook.

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billmcneale
Apple is on target to become #3 and quite possibly #4 in the next couple of
years, with Nokia #1, Android #2 and #3 unclear, but one of RIM, Microsoft or
Apple.

Either way, the iPhone will soon be as marginal a phone as Macs are to
personal computers.

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Prolorn
I'm surprised by the domination of Western Europe by iOS, and that Symbian's
share there is so low. Even Android's numbers are double that of Symbian.
Compare East Europe, where Symbian is roughly half the market. Was I just
naiive?

Also, one annoyance: why did they have to switch around the colors between
graphs?

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aresant
I would love to know break down by the actual phones . . . I bet there are
radically different downloads per device eg that would be hugely useful for
app devs to figure out where to target their efforts

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catch23
Considering Google has only paid out approx $30 million to Apple's $1 billion
in app sales, that's pretty sad considering how many android devices are out
there. An app developer might make more money on BREW than on Android.

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aspiringsensei
Do you have a source on that? I'm sure this is a "lmgtfy" kind of thing, but
I'm not an app developer so I'm not sure the particular jargon to Google.

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brisance
You must've missed out Larva Labs's article on it. They develop for both
Android and iOS.

[http://larvalabs.com/blog/android/android-market-payouts-
tot...](http://larvalabs.com/blog/android/android-market-payouts-total-2-of-
app-stores-1b/)

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aspiringsensei
Whither Research in Motion?

It seems to me like Blackberry Messenger is the only thing keeping that
company alive from a consumer perspective. I hear all the time "I would buy an
I phone, but I love BBM so much!"

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againstyou
look at the end of the original link
[http://metrics.admob.com/2010/06/may-2010-mobile-metrics-
rep...](http://metrics.admob.com/2010/06/may-2010-mobile-metrics-report/)

Generated by "Harsh S" AdMob Marketing this explains everything

