Apple's Share of U.S. Smartphone Ad Requests Grows, iPhone OS 3.0 Adoption Mixed

[MacRumors]

In its May 2009 Mobile Metrics report released today, mobile advertising firm AdMob revealed that the iPhone and iPod touch now account for 69% of the U.S. smartphone traffic on its ad network. The figure is up from 59% in April and 50% in March. Worldwide, the iPhone and iPod touch now account for 49% of smartphone ad requests.




In a separate report issued earlier this week, AdMob disclosed that 44% of iPhone ad requests through its network on Saturday, June 20th came from devices running iPhone OS 3.0, demonstrating significant adoption of the new operating system.




Conversely, only 1% of iPod touch ad requests on that date came from devices running iPhone OS 3.0, signaling the chilling effect of the $9.95 upgrade fee on adoption rates. iPod touch users also have less incentive to upgrade from a feature-based perspective, as many of the high-publicity upgrades found in iPhone OS 3.0 are limited to the iPhone hardware.




As always, readers should note that this data is from a single advertising source (albeit the world's largest) and tracks ad requests, which is only one measure of wireless phone traffic. In fact, in a separate study of iPhone OS 3.0 adoption rates released this week, one iPhone developer saw up to 80% of its iPhone customers and 50% of its iPod touch customers using iPhone OS 3.0 by this past Monday.

Article Link: Apple's Share of U.S. Smartphone Ad Requests Grows, iPhone OS 3.0 Adoption Mixed

[Peace]

Bit above the 1% Jobs wanted eh?

[JBaker122586]

Umm...
How is admob getting ad requests from devices running 1.x?
Aren't they an in-app advertising company?

[samac92]

i feel sorry for the people still using 2.0, it must be such a pain

[igazza]

Originally Posted by samac92

i feel sorry for the people still using 2.0, it must be such a pain

yea that keyboard lag was horrible

[Stewie]

Originally Posted by Peace

Bit above the 1% Jobs wanted eh?

I don't every remember him making a claim to wanting the biggest share of ad requests?

[WickedRabbit]

Originally Posted by Stewie

I don't every remember him making a claim to wanting the biggest share of ad requests?

My thoughts exactly. I think he was getting this survey confused with "Market Share". This is not Market Share, this is ad request. Completely different, people. L2Read.

There's probably a slightly more updated one, but here is a Market Share one and is only a few months old, which still shows Nokia in first, followed by RIM in second and Apple in third.

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=910112

[zacman]

Originally Posted by Peace

Bit above the 1% Jobs wanted eh?

It was 1% of all phones sold. In 2008 Apple sold around 10 million iPhones. Total phone sold: a bit more than 1 billion. So Apple has a little less than 1% market share.

[BaldiMac]

Originally Posted by zacman

It was 1% of all phones sold. In 2008 Apple sold around 10 million iPhones. Total phone sold: a bit more than 1 billion. So Apple has a little less than 1% market share.

Your point still stands, but your numbers are off. 13.7 million iPhones were sold in 2008. Total phones sold was about 1.1 billion, so Apple had a little more than 1%.

[NinjaHERO]

Wow, I can't believe how much of the market the Iphone has. I can't think many people won't upgrade to 3.0. I bet in the next month it's almost everyone on 3.0.

[jaw04005]

Apple could easily fix the 3.0 adoption problem by pushing down over-the-air firmware updates like the Palm Pre, G1, etc.

So far, they've chosen not to do that.

[macduke]

Originally Posted by zacman

It was 1% of all phones sold. In 2008 Apple sold around 10 million iPhones. Total phone sold: a bit more than 1 billion. So Apple has a little less than 1% market share.

Apple has sold 40 million iPhones and iPod touches combined since launch in June 2007 (make that 41 million after last weekend).

WikiPedia states "The International Telecommunication Union estimated that mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide would reach approximately 4.1 billion by the end of 2008."

Now I'm not exactly sure if subscriptions and phones are equivalent in any way, but with those numbers, yes, Apple has about 1% worldwide market share. Good work.

[Pugpuppydude]

For the iPod touch, 3.0 speeds EVERYTHING up for me. I don't see why anyone wouldn't upgrade.

[iOrlando]

i have an ipod touch and i did not upgrade to 3.0.


personally, i think its lousy to charge ipod touch users for upgrades. Yeah yeah i know about the whole accounting/GAAP saga. No need to write that as any excuse.

Its just lousy. Every major upgrade...ipod touch owners have to pay 10 bucks while iphone users dont.

big loser out of this whole thing? the devs. You know there will be a chunk of ipod touch owners who wont upgrade it because a) they dont have 10 bucks b) they dont want to spend 10 bucks etc...

[mattster16]

This statistic just doesn't seem right to me. How can you combine the iPhone and iPod Touch and compare it to other smartPHONES? The percentage is skewed in favor of Apple by including the iPod. Granted I'm sure Apple would still have a greater percentage, but not this much greater.

"Apple's Share of U.S. Smartphone Ad Requests" - This implies a comparison of smartphones. If they wanna change the title to something like "Apple mobile OS ad requests", then it would be valid to include the iPod.

[macduke]

Originally Posted by iOrlando

i have an ipod touch and i did not upgrade to 3.0.


personally, i think its lousy to charge ipod touch users for upgrades. Yeah yeah i know about the whole accounting/GAAP saga. No need to write that as any excuse.

Its just lousy. Every major upgrade...ipod touch owners have to pay 10 bucks while iphone users dont.

big loser out of this whole thing? the devs. You know there will be a chunk of ipod touch owners who wont upgrade it because a) they dont have 10 bucks b) they dont want to spend 10 bucks etc...

You will have to update eventually. I'm sure many apps will force you to have 3.0 if you want updates or to purchase new apps.

The real people who lose out are the people who have to pay huge chunks of money to AT&T. Granted, we get data, but the $10 is hardly anything compared to the life of our phone's bill. I think I'm going to buy 3.0 for my little sister's touch since she is 14 and has no money.

About the accounting rules...if they are that worried about it, charge $0.99 and be done with it. Unless there is something written about a fair market value price. Maybe it would be ruled an "unreasonably low price" and break the accounting rules? I don't know how any of it works, but that seems like a plausible scenario just from a logical perspective.

[manu chao]

Originally Posted by iOrlando

personally, i think its lousy to charge ipod touch users for upgrades. Yeah yeah i know about the whole accounting/GAAP saga. No need to write that as any excuse.

Its just lousy. Every major upgrade...ipod touch owners have to pay 10 bucks while iphone users dont.

Apple, in it own online stores, sells the iPhone 16 GB for €600, it sells the iPod touch 16 GB for €280 [in those European countries where the iPhone is sold unlocked].
The touch costs less than half of the iPhone and you complain about a measly $10?

[sidb]

People viewing admob ads are generally using the free versions of apps, which means they tend to be cheapskates. It isn't surprising they haven't paid to upgrade their Touches. I bet way more than 1% of all iPod Touch users have upgraded if you include those who use non-ad-supported apps.

[Doctor Q]

I know why at least one iPod touch user didn't upgrade. He's a friend of mine and he finally decided to take the leap and buy an iPhone to replace his iPod touch. So Apple shouldn't worry about that lost iPod touch upgrade fee; they made more money this way!

[ajhill]

What kind of silly survey includes iPods in the smartphone category?

Take out the iPods and then compare Apples to Apples ;-)

Read the book " How to lie with statistics" and wake up America!

[inkswamp]

Originally Posted by ajhill

What kind of silly survey includes iPods in the smartphone category?

Take out the iPods and then compare Apples to Apples ;-)

Read the book " How to lie with statistics" and wake up America!

This would be a lie if we were extrapolating this out to market share, but the focus here isn't mobile phone market share. The focus is which mobile platform is pulling in the most ad impressions. For that statistic, the presence of the iPod Touch is absolutely relevant because, in terms of ad requests/views/impressions, it's functionally identical to the iPhone.

And believe me, if you think the iPod Touch doesn't "count" when it comes to ad views, you've never worked in or around advertising people. I can guarantee you that there are people out there right now salivating over these numbers and not one of them gives a rip about splitting hairs over Apple's phone market share. Apple has a huge opportunity with this. I wonder how they'll take advantage of it.

[zacman]

Originally Posted by macduke

Apple has sold 40 million iPhones and iPod touches combined since launch in June 2007 (make that 41 million after last weekend).

The ipod is obviously no phone. Apple sold 17 million iPhones since June 2007 (end of March 2009. So by now it is between 18-20 million iPohnes). If your 40 million number was correct it would be less than 0.5% of market share.

[Eso]

Originally Posted by macduke

Apple has sold 40 million iPhones and iPod touches combined since launch in June 2007 (make that 41 million after last weekend).

WikiPedia states "The International Telecommunication Union estimated that mobile cellular subscriptions worldwide would reach approximately 4.1 billion by the end of 2008."

These are both true statistics, but seeing as iPod Touches are not smartphones, then it's 17 million iPhone sold worldwide (out of 4.1 billion total phones), meaning their marketshare is 0.41%.

Now, out of smartphones, they have about 11% worldwide. In the U.S., it's well over 20%.

The point of the article is really about mobile browsing, in which case the report really shows how great an experience it is on the iPhone.

[phlavor]

My Dad has a 2G iPhone and I will bet that he has whatever OS it shipped with and will continue to have it until I fly across the country and update it for him. He also has never set up his voicemail. "If I have voicemail, people expect me to call them back."

[kamiboy]

I have a 1.1.4 and a 3.0.0 version iPhone here side by side and the 1.1.4 is twice as fast as the newer firmware in almost any task. It is mind boggling really, so what 3Gs is going to do is just give you back the speed that has been lost since 1.1.4. I for one am often annoyed at the extra second or so apps take to start up or do some task on my 3.0, which was the same on 2.2. It makes my phone feel very sluggish, reminds me of using those crappy N series Nokia phones, shudder. I am sad that the speed was not improoved at all in 3.0, very sad