iPhone share of U.S. smartphone traffic hits 69%
See the blue slice in the pie chart at right? It represents the iPhone's share of U.S. smartphone traffic on the network maintained by AdMob, one of the companies that run those little ads that appear on the screen of your mobile phone.
We've been watching that slice grow over the past few months. In February it covered 51% of the pie. By April it had grown to 59%. And by Thursday morning, when AdMob released the May edition of its U.S. smartphone pie, Apple's (AAPL) share had grown to 69% — a 10 point increase in one month.
Some caveats are in order. This is just one company's view of the mobile Web — albeit the view of world's largest supplier of mobile ads, serving 6.3 billion banner and text ads per month. And it's only a snapshot of the smartphones on the U.S. portion of the AdMob network — although 47.6% of AdMob's traffic comes from the U.S. and 37.3% of that comes from smartphones.
Still, what it suggests is that Apple's domination of the smartphone market — the only part of the cellphone market that has continued to grow in the face of the recession, according to Gartner Research — is accelerating.
How tough this makes it for the competition is even clearer when you look at AdMob's report on the total U.S. handset market — one that includes smartphones, so-called feature phones and devices that aren't phones at all, like the iPod touch. Apple's share of this market, viewed through AdMob requests, is 45.1%, having grown 10.4% between April and May. Most of the other players in the field — including Research in Motion (RIMM), Samsung, Motorola (MOT) and Palm (PALM) — are showing negative growth. We'll be watching next month to see if Palm's share grows once AdMob starts to get data from the Pre.
Below the fold: AdMob's worldwide data, in which Apple's share  (31.4%) and share change (5.2%) are smaller, but the pattern is basically the same. You can see the full report here.
See also:
- The iPhone casts a giant shadow on the Web
- iPhone now represents 51% of U.S. smartphone traffic – report
The reason why the iPhone is so successful is because of its simplicity not because it is necessarily better. That's Apple's real skill – they know how to be attractive to simple people.
This is an ad company's stats of data traffic of their mobile network. The results could mean endless things – the least of which is what's implied in the headline. For instance maybe companies simply buy more ads from this network that want to advertise on an iphone. You can even see this as a negative for iphone users – iphone has the most ads bothering their users. Speculation? – well no more than the article's premise.
There is a untold story here -as iphones are coming out of contract people are not putting them in a drawer with the countless other old phones – they are giving to spouses, and friends to use as phones, selling them on, or removing the chip and giving to children to use as touches
If the phones were so bad – this would not be happening -never knew anyone doing this with their old razors etc
Damn skippy that the people that say the iPhone is crap below Symbian, Android and WinMo handsets are in total denial. These must the same people who believed Creative and Sony were the leaders over the iPod when it came to MP3 players. And they're still calling the iPod crap.
Just like the recent prediction that being able to run Flash on the web will boost every major handset OS over the iPhone OS if Apple doesn't allow it. It appears most of the other handset platform users are barely surfing the internet. All this net traffic for the iPhone just three short years since starting a handset platform. I still can't figure out why these iPhone haters consider the iPhone all hype. People are definitely using them and liking the experience.
I'm not sure that the iPhone can gather as much smartphone market share as Nokia being that there are so many handset companies in the world, but Apple will continue to get plenty of growth for years and that's good. Once Apple frees the iPhone to other carriers in the U.S., iPhone growth will probably grow exponentially.
And still people will be saying that the iPhone is junk and not nearly as useful as some people say it is.
I don't care how crappy the iPhone is being called as long as it sells well and helps Apple's share price go up.
There will always be people nagging, even when iPhone captures 100% market share.
The world evolves, only the strongest and the fittest survive.
In time, iPhone will triumph over Rim.
You can always tell the ostrich's, can't you? There the ones with their heads stuck in the sand and their tailfeathers waving in the breeze.
If the iPhone were as sucky as you all say it is, then why is everyone trying to come up with an "iPhone killer"? Hint: because their heads AREN'T stuck in the sand!
Interesting that Apple web share grows while their market sahre actually dropped in the first quarter. It proves iphone users are bandwidth hogs and as carriers get pressed on maintaining service quality for the rest of their customers, iphone users will eventually have to pay metered rates. Say good-bye to your unlimited data plans.
APPL & iPhone have cut & pasted all the iPhone killers out there! Even the delusional Pre pumpers like Roger the Moron from Elevation Partners.
Ayuh
I would suggest another conclusion: The iPhone is highly in-efficient at managing internet data, when compared to other mobile devices.
While other smartphones use data compression and other optimization techniques, the iPhone pulls entire webpages. While other phones pull down data points and render on device for things such as maps, the iPhone pull down data heavy images for things such as maps.
Since the iPhone does not have 69% share of the smartphone market, then one must make the following conclusion: iPhone users are much more likely to be browsing the web (at least admob sites on the web) then are the users of other "smartphones."
This leaves 3 logical explanations:
A- The iPhone makes it easier to browse the web, so people do so more readily,
B- People who want to browse from a mobile phone are attracted to iPhone for reasons not related to A.
C- A combination of A and B.
One corollary of htis is that the other phones just are not really smartphones.
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Interestingly – no other device has more than 4.5% (USA) less than 1/5 of the iPhone's share. HTC Dream (Android G1) is at 2.8%
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How about an office pool on what share the Pre will have next month of the USA handsets? I pick 1.3%
iPhone is approaching independence from Rim dragging onto Apple's coattail tagging along. People are finally realizing that Rim phones are really dumb, not smart.