The iPhone casts a giant shadow on the Web
Here's a pie chart that should warm Steve Jobs' heart.
That big blue slice covering 59% of the pie represents Apple's (AAPL) share of the U.S. smartphone traffic in April as measured by AdMob, the world's largest purveyor of ads on mobile apps and websites.
By the same measure, Apple also had the lion's share — 43% — of the mobile Web traffic worldwide.
The point of the "AdMob Mobile Metrics Report" for April 2009, released Wednesday morning, was not to give comfort to Apple's CEO. Rather it was to measure the large and growing shadow cast on the Internet by smartphones in general.
It cites a Gartner report that smartphones represented 12% of total mobile sales in 2008, and points out that those devices represented 35% of AdMob's traffic in April — nearly three times their market share.
But Apple's handheld devices — whose Internet shadow is more than five times their share — ended up dominating most of the report's charts. Among the highlights:
Of the 7.5 billion AdMob ads displayed on mobile devices in 160 countries around the world, 2 billion were displayed on iPhones or iPod touches- The iPhone OS has only 8% of global smartphone market share, but generates 43% of mobile Web requests and 65% of HTML usage
- In the United States, 20% of ad requests come from iPhones, 14.8% from iPod touches (globally, those numbers are 15.1% and 11%, respectively)
- Apple's share of U.S. ad requests grew 5.6% month over month
- The iPhone's share grew 3% in April; the iPod touch's grew 2.6
Those growth figures for Apple contrast with its competitors, most of whom lost share in the same period, including Motorola (MOT), Research in Motion (RIMM), LG, Kyocera (KYO) and Palm (PALM). The exceptions were Samsung, Nokia (NOK) and HTC, which grew marginally. See charts below the fold.
According to its website, AdMob stores and analyzes every ad request, impression and click from more than 7,000 mobile websites and 1,600 applications every day. Its most recent analysis of all that traffic, issued Wednesday, is available here.
See also:
- iPhone now represents 51% of U.S. smartphone traffic — report
- iPod touch use “exploded” Christmas day
Below the fold: AdMob's Web traffic numbers by manufacturer and model.
cnn is totally devoted to apple so I see nothing unusual here. Iphone is great, I myself have one but is too much hype here…
This data is highly biased. AdMob HEAVILY targets their Sales efforts towards iPhone apps iPhone web, because that's where the current mobile ad buys are concentrated. It's almost like McDonalds coming out and saying Coke sales FAR surpass Pepsi sales.
Popularity of handsets doesn't equate to traffic generated. I know people with Blackberries who have never accessed the web from their device. I probably surf a half hour a day with my iPhone. The bottom line is that the iPhone and Touch deliver a vastly more satisfying browsing experience than the other guys.
Admob has been caught in the Steve Jobs reality distortion field. If you look at where their business is predicated – in-app iPhone advertising – then its clear why these figures from Admob are skewed towards Apple.
Anyone outside of this distortion field knows that Apple has NOT have 43% of the mobile Web traffic worldwide. Take a look at the Bango figures and see for yourself – the iPhone does not even appear in the Top 20 handsets worldwide. http://news.bango.com/2009/03/30/iphone-not-a-top-20-handset-for-browsing-and-buying-on-the-mobile-web/
Our view is that if you focus just on the iPhone you are missing out on the bigger worldwide market.
I see to use my Samsung Omnia with ease surfing the web. It is a Windows Mobile device with an Opera browser which is actually very nice and easy to use. You can get the Opera browser on WinMo and BB. Not sure about Android, but there will be more Android phones here shortly.
As for Edward I would love to see you do all your office work that requires the web on your iphone. Chuck out the computer and lets see how productive you are. I use Vista everyday and have not one issue of getting what I need from the web, and that has been 2 years now. Not one, so get with the times and stop your falsehoods. Its people like you that make everyone else not trust your opinion.
Having used all Smart phones out there, I do NOT doubt the veracity and accuracy of this report. Using the web or any Internet-powered application on other phones is just a pain. NOT with iPhone, which does give you the "Internet in your pocket for the first time" (When Steve Jobs said these words, it sounds audacious but it's true. Internet usage in other smart phones is like…the baby internet). The Internet experience in iPhone is at times better than PC (especially the ones running Vista)
Frankly, I just don't trust these numbers. I know that many people have purchased iPhones/iPod touches just to use the internet/games and not really a phone but the RIM data just isn't believable. There are many other BB phones out there that use the internet but somehow aren't registering here.
I remember an article not too long ago here that showed, overall, RIM sold pretty much the same number of smart phones (can't remember specifics, sorry) as Apple did. Between the Pearls, Curves, and Storms I expect that this number should be much higher – I'm curious why the Storm doesn't even show up on the list (I don't expect it to show 5%, but it should be there).
And James, Apple is very limited. It doesn't have an open platform in the sense that you have to pass through Apple's red tape to get an app out. Any other smartphone OS has fewer limits than Apple simply due to their business model.
in Europe, Nokia would probably have a higher share than shown here
ex ped: Indeed it does. If you're interested, AdMob breaks out those numbers. Just follow the link to the report.
Not sure where James gets his info but what he speaks of can occur on any smartphone from Android to Windows Mobile and easily too. Apps can be written for any device and Apple is no different just a different OS. Authentication and Encryption are the keys to a secure transaction so RSA key fob and SSL encryption would work on any device.
Actually a friend of mine setup this service for a dispatch provider using cellular networks and Windows Mobile Motorola handheld devices. Just want to set the record straight, not dissing the iphone, I just think misinformation is not a good thing.
Stateful transactions such as supply chain management are coming to iPhone which would triple the power and traffic instead of the other devices which are only capable of stateless transactions.
iPhone is destined to be the only global user device of choice offering the only Universal UserID capability using active user identification and authentication which is a pre-requisite for secure transactions and communications for any purpose. iPhone can provide this capability because of its powerful application and integration platforms, unlike others which are just a single device like Rim which is eMail device only with nothing under Rim's hood.
The future of Apple is limitless.
@ Sarah at Bango: "Take a look at the Bango figures and see for yourself – the iPhone does not even appear in the Top 20 handsets worldwide"
Just a note on this… They measure access to mobile web sites. The iPhone doesn't default or request mobile versions of sites as it can properly display regular web pages, so of course the iPhone is going to be very low in their statistics. Also, there's a lot more to the internet than mobile web sites and web browsing; the statistics here include all access over the internet. Downloading and streaming music, movies, videos and applications is included as they do in fact take up internet bandwidth and there can be no arguing that these sort of activities happen much more often on an iPhone.