Thinking Of Just Creating An iPhone App? Think Again, Android Use Is Exploding
A new Comscore study looked at key trends in the U.S. mobile phone market during a three month period ending February 2011 surveying more than 30,000 subscribers. 9.5 million people in the U.S. owned smartphones during the three months, up 13% in just the preceding three months and Google's Android is increasingly the platform of choice. The stats:
- Android grew 7% since November, strengthening its #1 position with 33% percent market share
- Blackberry's RIM ranked second with 28.9% market share down 4.6%
- Apple had 25.2% down 46%
- Microsoft fell 1.1% to a 7.7% Market share
- Palm rounded out the top five at 2.8% down 1.1%
Still not sure you need to produce an app? 36.6% of those 9.5 million smartphone owners downloads at least one app in the same three month period.
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This is very true. I am very glad to say that we’re already in this market by providing labels a cost-effective way to produce apps on iTunes and Android. Gaining access to this market in the music industry is relative and should be considered by the artist and independent community.
Kevin Rivers
CEO, Venzo Music (VMG)
Twitter: @kevin_rivers
Android is certainly gaining momentum, but I wouldn’t rush there based on those numbers alone as they fail to cover two very important points…
The first is the much talked about fragmentation. While Android as an overall platform has strong numbers, no one device or even Android version number has nearly the user base or market exposure as the iPhone. It’s very important to develop for a specific device if you want a strong user experience. Certainly it’s easier to port an app across various Android devices, but you’re still probably in the 80/20 rule (80% standard, 20% custom), so you have to make a decision for each device based on the economics.
Speaking of economics, the second point is that the ROI for Android has yet to be proven on any scale. Their recent In App Purchasing capabilities will definitely help, but it’s really too soon to tell.
I’m fully in favor of Android, and see it continuing to gain momentum, but I’m still in the camp of iOS first, Android second, and don’t bother with anything else.