Submitted by AdMob has released their latest set of figures regarding the usage shares of various mobile platforms when it comes to web browsing. The figures are pretty clear: the big winners are the new kids on the block, iPhoneOS, Android, and webOS.
AdMod serves ads for more than 9000 mobile web pages and 3000 applications, all over the world. They use thisto collect data on handsets and operating systems being used to access these web pages and applications. AdMob serves more than 10 billion ad requests per month. As always, these figures are not in any way to be trusted at face value; they indicate trends, not absolutes.
But boy, are those trends clear. It is the new platforms who are gaining market share at the cost of the older platforms out there. Between February 2009 and August 2009, iPhoneOS, Android, and webOS all gained significantly in share. The iPhone stands out because of its massive 40% share of the market (still growing!), and the webOS stands out because despite its short lifespan so far, it already gained 4% of a highly competitive market, even though it’s only available in North America. It is important to note that the iPod Touch was not included in these figures, as it does not fall within the definition of a smartphone used by AdMob.
Even though these figures do not present any absolutes, it’s quite clear that the ‘new’ mobile platforms, designed from the get-go with the web in mind, are the ones that are growing rapidly. The older platforms, all from pretty much a pre-mobile web era, are doing badly and are losing market share.
It’s also clear that the iPhone is pretty much the king here, which really shouldn’t surprise anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock the past two years. Luckily though, the iPhone doesn’t strangle the competition, and new players are still capable of grabbing parts of the market.
I use AdMob for my apps and it reports all “iPhoneOS devices” in my figures. I just get info on “clicks” and “impressions”, but I know that one of my beta testers is in the US (only US user of that app) and I get geo info for the clicks/impressions in the US. So, they do include iPod Touches, at least to publishers.
The iPod touches ARE included in the report. It appears in all ‘top handset’ charts in plain text.
Moreover, look at the statistics on page 12. Worldwide figures are 46.5% from the US, 25.6% from Asia and 9.6% from western Europe.
So the US is more represented into this data. The trend is actually the opposite in Asia and in Africa, but it doesn’t reflect on the data aggregated with US’s data because AdMob is mainly present in the US.
Nokia does not even appear in the US chart where it is the top or second top brand in all other regions.
Also, take this into account:
Opera mobile usually uses a caching proxy server that compresses web pages. All requests from Opera mobile are therefore not forwarded. Most ads are actually cached.
Also, this is an Advertising company. I doubt they publish data for free. Follow the money and see who paid for that report.
I suspect the actual trend may not be what you see in this report. It certainly does not reflect what I can see around here.
Edited 2009-10-01 12:08 UTC
edit: delete
cause: wanted to edit previous post
Edited 2009-10-01 12:24 UTC
I really hope it will get some traction. I like phones with high res screens. The app situation for Maemo is OK, but far from great. Android and iPhone are much better in that regard. But I want mainly a good browser, which the N900 has.
Android will be able to run on high res screen with 1.6, so it will be Android or Maemo for me.
I, for one, hate admob ads with passion.
Developpers putting this on so small phone screens, it takes between 2/10 and 1/3 of the screen.
That’s horrible.
sometimes you even get them on paid applications.
lets pick one at random, wolf3d jailbroken, you’re playing and a little bird moves non-stop at the top of the screen – thats some advert for whatever.
It’s so irritating, you can’t keep your eyes off it, especially since it takes so much space on the small screen.
Edited 2009-10-01 12:47 UTC
Note that this only indicates market share of expensive big-screen phones (as it’s about web browsing stats).
I believe iPhone will be up to some beating on this front by
http://maemo.nokia.com/n900/
Edited 2009-10-01 13:03 UTC
I highly doubt Windows Mobile figures. Granted – Symbian is bigger, but I don’t really see Android or iPhone or Palm or Blackberry outnumbering Windows Mobile devices, at least in Bulgaria. Here Symbian and WM have the biggest share. May be in the USA or other European countries the picture is different, but at least here Windows Mobile has a very strong market share. And don’t get me even started on how many applications exist for all other platforms. Well, iPhone seems to be catching up and Symbian is about the same, but Palm, Android, Blackberry? I don’t think so.
It’s not about the number of devices – it’s about how much they access the mobile web. It’s mobile web market share, not device market share.
Sorry – I misunderstood that. Well, by this criteria the figures might be closer to the truth.
But we know iPhone users are Web-tarts, so how is this news? They’re pretty much the only handset (as I can buy Android handsets without a data plan included) that sells with an always included data plan, so for the iPhone not to perform well in browsing trends, I would be shocked.
Totally agree. 4% for windows mobile is a ridiculously low number.
Edit: ah now I see its about access to the mobile web. Still 4% seems a bit low.
Edited 2009-10-04 11:00 UTC
Found their web site. It’s hard to know that they support any other phones except the iPhone. On their portal, they only talk about the iPhone. Actually I didn’t find any information about other phones. I think it’s not even possible to put an advert from Admob on Symbian apps. So if you have a symbian phone the only way to go reach an AdMob ad is to use the native browser to go to a site serving such an ad, whereas many iPhone apps serve AdMob ads.
I use Opera Mobile and never saw any Admob advert. I also use a lot of J2ME apps and games. It’s surprising Symbian even appears in the charts.
Edited 2009-10-01 13:39 UTC
According to their stats, WebOS already has more marketshare than PalmOS did six months ago. That can’t be bad news for Palm’s bottom line.
I’m glad Palm can finally move upwards instead of being stuck with the classic OS for the past 5 zillion years or so
I might be wrong, but I thing that might just be because the original palmOS browser sucked big time, and opera mini for palmOS was quite unstable as well.
Some years ago, I bought a Palm TX as a mobile internet device (didn’t really need the phone abilities at the time), and that was such a painful experience that I thought long and deep before buying my current Android phone.
Well, I’m happy I did so, because the experience is a lot better this time around.
These numbers make absolutely no sense, considering the different market shares of these devices as reported elsewhere. I believe Gartner put symbian at just over 40% worlwide, BlackBerry at around 20% and iPhone at 10%. Palm could not have sold that many Pre devices since its introduction.
Is it possible that the numbers are skewed since most BlackBerrys access the Internet via Proxies (either BES or BIS), which do not register as mobile device accesses?
Sorry if I sound like a stuck record (assuming anyone using this site is old enough to remember what a stuck record sounds like) but this is the third time I’ve had to moan in recent months about an article on OSNews that’s based on data with such a geographical skew that it’s meaninglesss.
48% of requests analysed by admob come from North America. Western Europe, with a larger population that’s similarly affluent and technophilic, accounts for just 9.6% of requests. Japan, the world’s second largest economy, doesn’t feature in the top 10 countries. Nor does China, the third largest economy. Come to think of it, Germany (4th largest economy) and Italy (7th largest) are missing, too. But Saudi Arabia – yes, really! – rolls in with more requests than France. This is nonsense on stilts balanced on top of a skyscraper built over a mountain.
I suggest that the relative movement of the various mobile operating systems described by admob says most about the timing of the release of new hardware by mobile operators in the countries where it has a significant advertising presence. And, despite the apparent boom in PalmOS usage, I’ve never seen anyone use it, never heard anyone talk about it and don’t know anyone who knows anyone who uses it. Outside the USA it appears to be irrelevant. But, silly me! I forgot – the USA _is_ the world. At least, it’s the world according to OSNews.
Yawn.
I think we can safely say that Microsoft isn’t going to get a monopoly in the mobile space anytime soon unless they can pull off something really drastic.
Actually Microsoft needs to do something drastic just to keep a foothold in the mobile space. There is absolutely no way that they will be able to dominate the mobile space. None.
As far as I can see these figures don’t attempt to calculate market share but rather the relative share of people using their phones to browse the web. Its surely no surprise that the iPhone does so well here as the Safari browser on an iPhone was the first phone browser to offer a truly usable and pleasurable experience of web browsing on a phone and one that came much closer to the experience of browsing on a computer than any previous or existing phone based browser.
All evidence seems to suggest that iPhone users tend to use the web far more than non-iPhone users. That may change over time as the other manufacturers rush to try to catch up with Apple but for the moment the iPhone is and will continue to be the leading phone for web browsing.