AdMob April 2010 study has Android near-even

The total number of active Android phones in the US is quickly catching up to iPhones, AdMob's latest results show. Tracking on its ad network shows about 8.7 million unique Android phones in the US for April where Apple had 10.7 million. The number doesn't include total devices sold but shows that Google's multi-carrier, multi-device strategy has helped Android within the US.

The same couldn't be said for Google's international performance, the researchers discovered. Worldwide, Android only grew slightly more at 11.6 million while Apple's iPhone user base is much higher, at 27.6 million; 75 percent of Android devices came from the US. The remainder was split almost equally between Asia and Western Europe with the rest belonging to Canada and other smaller countries.

The gap between Android and iPhone OS also widened when including the iPad and iPod touch: 18.7 million total devices from the US were on AdMob's network last month, while 40.8 million were active worldwide. Appropriately, the US represented just 44 percent of iPhone-based hardware where the UK (9 percent), France (6 percent), Canada (5 percent) and Japan (4 percent) played larger roles.

Usage share results reinforced this view that Android wasn't necessarily gaining overall traction. Both worldwide and in the US, Android's OS use was virtually flat at 25 percent worldwide and 46 percent in the US. Apple lost both device and OS share worldwide but could actually attribute this to RIM's BlackBerry and the predominantly Nokia-led Symbian platform, not Google.

The results are likely to vary substantially in the next few months and may lean in Apple's favor, as a new iPhone as well as expanding iPad sales may trigger upsurges in use. More Android phones, like the Motorola Shadow, may help offset this, as may shifts in mobile advertising: the launch of Apple's iAd may take a small amount of iPhone providers away from AdMob, and the recent approval of Google's AdMob buyout may lead AdMob to favor Android more than it would otherwise.

By Electronista Staff

Post tools:

TAGS :  

iPhone, industry, Google, Symbian, Nokia, Android, BlackBerry, Research in Motion, mobile phones, Apple