“According to a report issued Friday by Net Applications, the Web presence of Android devices peaked in November at 28% and has been drifting down ever since,” Philip Elmer-DeWitt reports for Fortune.
“By contrast, Apple’s iOS has climbed since October, after the company launched the iPhone 5 and the iPad mini,” P.E.D. reports. “That’s quite a different story than the one being told by market research firms like IDC, which has Samsung’s Android-based smartphones outselling the iPhone and Samsung’s tablets rapidly catching up to Apple’s iPad. ‘IDC says Android is the new king of tablet market share,’ was Thursday’s headline on CNNMoney.”
MacDailyNews Take: How CNN arrived at that lie of a headline is baffling, since even they managed to report corrected under it that, “Apple’s fourth-quarter share of shipments came to 43.6%. It’s still the top vendor by a mile…” In other words, Apple is quite obviously still the king, despite the lie CNN attempts to perpetrate in the headline on their website.
P.E.D. reports, “I was skeptical of IDC’s tablet shipment numbers Thursday, given that of the major tablet manufacturers, only Apple actually releases unit sales data. And I’m doubly skeptical today, given the trends shown in Net Applications’ data… How can Google’s Android be the king of tablets and smartphones if more than 60% of Web users are on Apple devices and only 24.5% on Android?”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote last November:
It’s the marketing, stupid.
Android is pushed to users who are, in general:
a) confused about why they should be choosing an iPhone over an inferior knockoff and therefore might be less prone to understand/explore their devices’ capabilities or trust their devices with credit card info for shopping; and/or
b) enticed with “Buy One Get One Free,” “Buy One, Get Two or More Free,” or similar ($100 Gift Cards with Purchase) offers.Neither type of customer is the cream of the crop when it comes to successful engagement or coveted demographics; loser to the bottom of the barrel than the top, in fact. Android can be widespread and still demographically inferior precisely because of the way in which and to whom Android devices are marketed. Unending BOGO promos attract a seemingly unending stream of cheapskate freetards just as inane, pointless TV commercials about robots or blasting holes in concrete walls attract meatheads and dullards, not exactly the best demographics unless you’re peddling muscle building powders or grease monkey overalls.
Google made a crucial mistake: They gave away Android to “partners” who pushed and continue to push the product into the hands of the exact opposite type of user that Google needs for Android to truly thrive. Hence, Android is a backwater of second-rate, or worse, app versions that are only downloaded when free or ad-supported – but the Android user is notoriously cheap, so the ads don’t sell for much because they don’t work very well. You’d have guessed that Google would have understood this, but you’d have guessed wrong. Google built a platform that depends heavily on advertising support, but sold it to the very type of customer who’s the least likely to patronize ads.
iOS users are the ones who buy apps, so developers focus on iOS users. iOS users buy products, so accessory makers focus on iOS users. iOS users have money and the proven will to spend it, so vehicle makers focus on iOS users. Etcetera. Android can have the Hee Haw demographic. Apple doesn’t want it or need it; it’s far more trouble than it’s worth.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews readers too numerous to mention individually for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Android’s unit share growth has not hurt Apple’s profit share – February 26, 2013
Apple iOS dominates mobile video viewing with 60% share vs. Android’s 32% – February 13, 2013
Android’s Web share down 13% since November; Apple’s iOS now over 60% – February 1, 2013
IDC: Apple dominates worldwide tablet market with 43.6% unit share – January 31, 2013
The Android engagement paradox – November 26, 2012
People buy more Android phone units and do less with them vs. Apple’s revolutionary iPhone – November 14, 2012
Study: iPhone users vastly outspent Android users on apps, respond much better to ads – August 20, 2012
Apple utterly dominates mobile device market with 6% market share – and 77% of the profits – August 6, 2012
Game over, Android: Apple owns 84% of mobile gaming revenue – May 7, 2012
Wealthy smartphone users more likely to have iPhones; less likely to play games, tweet – April 2, 2012
U.S. Apple product users split evenly between Republicans and Democrats; Half of U.S. households own at least one Apple product – March 28, 2012
Study: iPad users more likely to buy – and buy more – online than traditional PC users – September 29, 2011
Apple iPhone users most open to mobile payments – August 22, 2011
iPhone users smarter, richer, less conservative than Android phone users – August 16, 2011
Apple iPhone users spend significantly more on their credit cards than non-iPhone users – November 5, 2010
Study: Apple iPhone users richer, younger, more productive than other so-called ‘smartphone’ users – June 12, 2009
Nielsen: Mac users are better educated and make more money than PC users – July 12, 2002
Another reason the Anal-ists are STUPID! Another report showing Apple is Growing and kicking butt! The doom and gloom talk is BULLSHIT!
They don’t need a reason to be stupid.
I can imagine the CNN director sitting in his office saying, “We need to get stories straight and get our shit together”.
I know, wishful thinking. To bad, I use to think better of CNN.
Maybe all those Android users just use their tablet for Facebook, twitter and Angry Birds?
And the rest of the time it serves as digital picture frame …
I wonder if part of Samsung’s 12 billion dollar ad budget is going into the pockets of IDC too!
What’s in it for CNN?
Further burnishing their reputation as a piece of shit network pushing hidden agendas instead of simply reporting the news?
All you need to know about the news networks was on display for Obama’s inauguration:
MSNBC: Constantly claiming how many people were in attendance and what a party atmosphere it was;
FOX: Constantly claiming how few people were in attendance and what a lack of party atmosphere it was;
CNN: Constantly talking about Michelle Obama’s designer wardrobe.
We’re all in deep doo-doo.
Eloquently said, my friend.
I missed the inauguration coverage. Probably was on Pintrest, Facebook, or Twitter.
Thanks for the recap.
Wait; how can this be right, when the overwhelming consensus is that Apple is washed up? Fifty million analysts can’t be wrong.
Wow, looks like you’ve found a comment you can copy and paste into darn near any article dealing with Apple.
oooOOh! yes they Can!!
The wallstreet journal didnt say a word today about iOS leading mobile sales today. Even bloomberg had the correct headline. I have no doubt the media is part of this game and i cant believe no one can do anything about this. Samsungs chairman is an ex convict, they are criminals they have money and everyone has a price.
Hey, look, if you’re trying to monetize a website that publishes “News”, why not sell the real-estate to the highest bidder? After all, it’s just bits and bytes. If I was trying to run a franchise like that, you can bet I’d be offering premium space to Samedung. Why? Because they’ll pay for it! It’s so friggin’ obvious that that’s what’s going down here. Even MDN sells ads to Samescum.
Its not ethical for the press to do that. Im cool with mdn selling ad space. But to run stories and headlines based on who is paying is plain wrong and should be against the law. Just like analysts have to disclose a long or short position when talking anout a stock, publications should disclose who is paying for that story too,
Perhaps a nice way of putting things than MDN does is that a lot of (maybe most of) Android sales are to people that don’t particularly want smartphones or tablets, but get them anyway because there are low end Android devices as cheap as the products they actually want (feature phones and ebook readers).
Most of the people that buy Android phones aren’t buying them as portable computers, they are buying them as better featured versions of what five years ago would have been Symbian running smart phones. They snap and text pictures with them, maybe put mp3s on them, and mostly use the phones for talking and texting. (It would be interesting to know what percentage of android phone users even have email set up on their phones.)
Similarly, a lot of people are getting (probably mostly from amazon) products that IDC counts as tablets but that the buyers are just using as ereaders, if they are using them at all. Of the Kindle Fires sold, how many are being used to do anything other than download books from amazon or the library, and how many are sitting in closets or desk drawers.
Easy answer – they gave up on trying to connect to the internet.
+∞
Wow. Keep that perspective as long as you can, Candide.
I like the trend, but it’s far more modest than the headline suggests. He’s used percentages in a manner that more than doubles the real change in their respective shares of web traffic. It’s misleading and lame. We’re better served by the truth.
Apple’s only by up 1% of 60%: .6%
Android is down 13% of 28%: 3.6%
Harsh, but many good points were made. I’d love to see what would happen if the price of all cellphones were temporarily brought on par with iDevice prices. Android market share would plummet and 80 – 90% of the world would own Apple devices. BOGO sales that produce less than a third of the profits with a majority market share shouldn’t be used as a measure of prowess. Walmart isn’t better than Target just because it has more customers. Most people shop at Walmart solely out of need. Many still hate the quality of service and products.
Good news for Apple everywhere but stock goes down….go figure….
Actually, Apple would like to capture the Hee Haw demographic too, but there are a few other groups that Apple is definitely not interested in.