iOS, iPad web use still outpacing all Android devices combined

Posted:
in iPhone edited January 2014
A broad sample of millions of website visitors detailed by Google Analytics indicates that the entire Android ecosystem combined, while slightly ahead of Apple's iPhone 4, continues to be outpaced by Apple's iOS, largely due to the rapid growth of iPad. This mirrors additional data that underlines Apple's lead in both mobile browsing and app sales, refuting recent reports that claim Android is displacing iOS.



Despite regular reports that Google's Android platform has passed iPhone 4 in both installed base and growth, Jeff Tribble of SEO firm ROI365 notes that the firm's analytics data covering 4 million unique visitors across a large portfolio of web sites actually reveals that Android's share of web visits over the iPhone "is very slight and has not grown much over the past quarter."



Tribble reported that his collective data "currently show 2.89% of the visits coming from Android vs 2.62% coming from iPhone. In December we showed 2.05 for Android and 2.01 for iPhone. But this is not an apples to apples comparison," he noted.



iOS ahead of Android, growing faster



"The Android stats are for the total platform while iOS stats are broken out into 3 categories, iPhone, iPad and iPod. Android has never come close to passing iOS as a whole," Tribble reported.



"Our iOS visits are currently 4.97%, up from 3.8% in December. If you exclude iPod (which is slightly declining) our visits are currently 4.16%, up from 2.94% in December for a growth rate of 41.5% which is slightly higher than the Android platform growth of 40.98%.



"So while the entire Android platform with all of their partners, models, phones and tablets has outgrown the single iPhone 4 by 40.98% to 30.35% the past 4 months, iPad is outgrowing the entire Android ecosystem so significantly [that] it more than makes up for the iPhone deficiency plus some. And it just launched 3 weeks ago and millions of people who want them can't get their hands on them yet."



StatCounter Mobile



Parallel figures from StatCounter Mobile indicate that Apple's iPhone has lost web browser share since the end of 2008 in the mobile space. However, Mobile Safari has grown from third place to second behind Opera Mini following just over two years of changes in the smartphone arena. According to StatCounter Mobile, Android's browser has never come close to exceeding iPhone browser use, even before including iPod touch or iPad users.



The use of "other" web browsers has fallen significantly as users have settled upon one of the top five mobile browsers: Opera Mini, popular among many feature phones (and also available for every mobile platform, including iOS, Android and BlackBerry); Apple's Safari Mobile iPhone browser; Nokia's third place WebKit browser; Android's fourth place WebKit Chrome browser; and RIM's fifth place WebKit BlackBerry browser.



Note the StatCounter's figures separate out iPod touch and iPad users, so its numbers described here only represent iPhone Safari users. The firm tracks 15 billions hits across three million sites every month.



Apple's Mobile Safari, which dramatically raised the bar in mobile browsing when it first appeared on the iPhone in 2007, is down just 2.5 percentage points from the end of 2008, while new competition over the same period has erased nearly 5.5 points of Opera Mini's share. Mobile phone leader Nokia has lost about two points of share among mobile browser users.



New WebKit browsers for RIM and Android phones have enabled those platforms to make dramatic gains, with BlackBerry eating up nearly 9 points of new mobile browse share while Android has grown by over 13 percentage points. That growth has come largely at the expense of "other" mobile browsers, including Microsoft and Palm, a figure that has collapsed by nearly 12 points over the last nine quarters.



Growth curves over this period indicate that these shifts are now slowing down, with all of the major mobile browsers settling into minimal changes over the last quarter. Apple reversed its downward trend beginning last summer, a change that mirrors the launch of iPhone 4, and is now slowly growing upward again. Opera mini has erased the gains it had made since early 2009; Nokia has continued to slip downward; RIM's growth peaked last fall and has since shrunk back to its share from the first half of last year; while Android's rapid growth throughout 2010 has since flattened out.







Again, StatCounter Mobile numbers here only pertain to iPhone users. iPod touch figures among web visitors have been declining overall as a share of all mobile browser use since late 2009, with seasonal rebounds occurring alongside holiday iPod sale surges. In March, iPod touch took an additional 6.09 percent share of mobile users in addition to the 18.18 percent share claimed by iPhone, creating a combined iOS platform share of handheld devices that was well ahead of Opera Mini, even without counting iPad use, and nearly ten points ahead of Android's browser (for about a 60% larger installed base).



iOS App Store revenue growth eleven times greater than Android Market in 2010



This means that despite large sales of Android handsets, among web browsers, Apple's iOS is clearly remaining the dominate mobile platform. This mirrors Apple's native app business, which is far larger than any other mobile platform in both numbers of titles and revenues generated.



A report from February indicated that Apple continues to own 82.7 percent of all mobile software sales with its iOS App Store.



While Android's year over year "percentage growth" in app sales was up an impressive 861.5 percent compared to Apple's 131.9 percent growth, Android's software revenues actually grew by $91 million over last year, while Apple's App Store grew by a whopping $1,013 million, more than 11 times as much real growth in terms of revenue dollars. Handset sales by all Android licensees combined were higher than Apple's in 2010, but that did not result in greater app sales nor even in greater web use by Android users.







A new competitive cycle beginning



Dynamic growth among new iPhone competitors in 2009 and 2010 is now maturing, even as Apple rapidly expands its market share among mobile devices with the fast growing iPad and stable iPod touch, two product categories that smartphone makers haven't been able to successfully challenge.



RIM hopes to enter the tablet market with its Playbook this summer, while Google has closed the source code of its Android 3.0 Honeycomb project to focus on making it a credible competitor among tablet devices as its licensees return to the drafting board to redesign more competitive hardware after a faulty start by Motorola's Xoom and Samsung's self described "inadequate" initial design of its Honeycomb Galaxy Tab.



HP and Microsoft licensees will also bring new tablet devices to market later this year and next year, although increasing numbers of analysts are describing the rush to build tablets as a bubble that may not support the aspirations of all the players involved, just as previous efforts to duplicate Apple's success with the iPod failed to materialize.



Apple has continued to remain a tough act to beat, with aggressive pricing and hardware improvements, a heavily promoted edge in functionality and third party app support, and a lead in HTML5 browser savvy that web development firm Sencha described as "a top rate, no compromises HTML5 browser" in contrast to calling Android 3.0 Honeycomb "not ready for primetime, even for HTML4."
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 76
    uguysrnutsuguysrnuts Posts: 459member
    First!
  • Reply 2 of 76
    Don't expect explosive growth now for the iPhone.



    Too many people own or will soon own both an iPhone and an iPad. It is only natural that those people will preferably access the web from their iPad, EXCEPT when they are on the road, i.e., when they may not have their iPad on them -- Then they will still use the iPhone.
  • Reply 3 of 76
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member
    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.
  • Reply 4 of 76
    joshdeanjoshdean Posts: 24member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by VanFruniken View Post


    Don't expect explosive growth now for the iPhone.



    Too many people own or will soon own both an iPhone and an iPad. It is only natural that those people will preferably access the web from their iPad, EXCEPT when they are on the road, i.e., when they may not have their iPad on them -- Then they will still use the iPhone.



    May I direct you to 'Predicting iPhone Sales for Dummies'.



    "We know from company statements that Apple faces more demand than it can supply. That makes things easier for the amateur because she can just figure out production. In other words, the logical way to forecast Apple?s iPhone sales is to guess how many they can make."

    Horace Dediu



    http://www.asymco.com/2011/03/28/pre...s-for-dummies/
  • Reply 5 of 76
    joshdeanjoshdean Posts: 24member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.



    I don't know why DED does it, but I'm a long term Apple investor, not a fanboy. I don't want FUD because the market sees through that eventually. But an accurate report (hope this is an example of that) which showcases Apple's advantages over the competition gives me a woody.
  • Reply 6 of 76
    It's important to document what is actually going on out there. That's what Dan has done here. There is an incredible amount of mis-information out there, and I find it very interesting to see these numbers.



    As another poster mentioned, most people that now have an iPad, will opt to use that for web-use when able, as it's obviously a much better experience than just on an iPhone. So that will distort numbers obviously.



    For those that like Android, that's great. I hope they live it, love it, and enjoy it. I couldn't care less. Those of us that are long time Mac-enthusiasts, really appreciate and enjoy the fact that we are now doing so 'well', shall we say. Seeing even more numbers that show that effect I just find very interesting.



    This is just decoding info that has been released that is relevant to those of us that are interested in how this is all playing out. That's all. And this info will be spun by others in many ways, as has always been the case.



    Dan, another insightful article. Thank You.
  • Reply 7 of 76
    wovelwovel Posts: 956member
    It it is telling that despite all of the noise about Android versus iPhone, Android is still a no-entity in the app business. This explains Google change of heart, they finally realized just how much damage their fragmentation was causing. Carriers and traditional phone manufacturers are actually pretty terrible at giving people a product they want. Apple has known this since 2007, Google caught on in 2011.



    Now we may see some actual competition. This is when things get interesting.
  • Reply 8 of 76
    haruhikoharuhiko Posts: 46member
    "If you can't win the game, change the rule."



    1. iPhones in quantity < 329 Android phones in quantity, then

    2. iPhone < Android, then

    3. iOS < Android, then

    4. Proclamation of "victory" by some fandroids.



  • Reply 9 of 76
    d-ranged-range Posts: 396member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    How is this article a rant? I read it as just a summary of some report that shows iOS devices generate a lot of traffic, more than Android devices, even though it has less marketshare. Which is an interesting observation worth writing about.



    Quote:

    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.



    I'm getting a little tired hearing the stupid fanboy word in every Apple-related topic on every website. Seems as if nowadays you can't say *anything* positive about Apple or iOS without being called a fanboy. You are simply adding to this nonsense, complaining on a blog called AppleInsider that you see a lot of articles that say nice things about Apple. Of course you won't see a lot of anti-Apple topics here, and you will see a lot of articles that will rub in competitors faults. I don't see what's so wrong with that. On other sites that try to please 'fanboys' of both camps, like Engadget for example, every topic ends up like one gigantic flamewar, without anyone having anything interesting to add to the 'discussion'. If that's more your thing, you should go and enjoy the comments section there.
  • Reply 10 of 76
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.



    Why are Android fans blind to reality.



    Comparisons of Android vs iPhones are presented as evidence of "winning" while ignoring a huge chunk of iOS devices (i.e. iPads and iPod Touch's).



    Reality distortion field much?



    Viewed through rosy Google Goggles.



    iOS is holding it's own and is still growing, Android's growth has come at the expense of others, including low end dumbphones where Apple hasn't gone.
  • Reply 11 of 76
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    The real interesting stat there is the revenue. Mapping revenue to market share sees android selling 4% of all apps for 30% of the installed base, and Apple selling 87% of all apps for 25% of the market.



    So even if Android wins the market share wars in phones, which it will ( although Apple will be second nor 3rd as per IDC) Apple will win the apps war. When will app devs realise this?



    Ads make things a bit different, but Apple's iADs are just a hobby at the moment.
  • Reply 12 of 76
    granmastakgranmastak Posts: 298member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.



    It's not a feeling! It is an attack! The google PR machine has unleashed an unprecedented attack and many publications are pushing the idea that the Nerdroid OS will rule the world and how much it is growing and how its (non-existent) tablets will eclipse the iOS ones in a year, and how superior it is etc. Just look at the headlines.



    It's only fair to fight back against all this propaganda.



    It's spelled "fanbois" btw. Was invented by the windoze fans but somehow fandroids have yet to master it's spelling.
  • Reply 13 of 76
    neiltc13neiltc13 Posts: 182member
    All of my friends with Android phones use Firefox to browse the web. Does this data include that as well?



    Also, "4 million unique visitors over a large portfolio of websites" doesn't seem like a very good sample to me.
  • Reply 14 of 76
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by neiltc13 View Post


    All of my friends with Android phones use Firefox to browse the web. Does this data include that as well?



    Yes, the user agent tells the website what the device is.



    Quote:

    Also, "4 million unique visitors over a large portfolio of websites" doesn't seem like a very good sample to me.



    Its far more than they need. As long as sample size is big enough the population size doesnt matter.
  • Reply 15 of 76
    damn_its_hotdamn_its_hot Posts: 1,209member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by joshdean View Post


    I don't know why DED does it, but I'm a long term Apple investor, not a fanboy. I don't want FUD because the market sees through that eventually. But an accurate report (hope this is an example of that) which showcases Apple's advantages over the competition gives me a woody.



    Could not agree more - sounds like it's a fandroid calling the kettle black to me! You're spot on!
  • Reply 16 of 76
    damn_its_hotdamn_its_hot Posts: 1,209member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by neiltc13 View Post


    All of my friends with Android phones use Firefox to browse the web. Does this data include that as well?



    Also, "4 million unique visitors over a large portfolio of websites" doesn't seem like a very good sample to me.



    Check your stats book chap - the sample size is very reasonable to represent this population.
  • Reply 17 of 76
    sciwizsciwiz Posts: 77member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.



    Here's why:



  • Reply 18 of 76
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sciwiz View Post


    Here's why:







    A graph that shows Android making no inroads against the iPhone in a market where the iPhone was on one carrier.
  • Reply 19 of 76
    lkrupplkrupp Posts: 10,557member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by RichL View Post


    Why do some Apple fans feel so threatened by Android? Why is DED so threatened by Android than he feels the need to write 2,000 word rants about Google every week?



    I've never really understood this kind of behaviour. I can enjoy the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad without needing to rubbish to the competition. Apple is big enough, rich enough and clever enough to succeed without fanboys spewing FUD over every corner of the Internet.



    Because resident trolls, analysts, fandroids, a lot of the tech media, and pimply faced sales clerks at Best Buy are constantly bashing iOS as a an abject failure. They compare the Android operating system to the iPhone and declare victory. This article points out that when comparing Android to iOS, Android is behind.



    Are you saying that Apple fans like DED spread FUD but the convoluted tripe spewed out by fans of the competition is not?
  • Reply 20 of 76
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post


    Because resident trolls, analysts, fandroids, a lot of the tech media, and pimply faced sales clerks at Best Buy are constantly bashing iOS as a an abject failure. They compare the Android operating system to the iPhone and declare victory. This article points out that when comparing Android to iOS, Android is behind.



    Are you saying that Apple fans like DED spread FUD but the convoluted tripe spewed out by fans of the competition is not?



    There is such a bias towards Android in the pseudo-tech media that nobody has got mad at Google - the epitome of OPENNESS - for closing the platform, nor has anybody even started to talk about what this means for the Oracle suit.



    ( hint: its not good).
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