iOS Remains More Popular Than Android for Holiday Shopping in the U.S.

[Michael Scrip]

Yeah, but the US are just ONE nation of what makes the so-called "first world". In another first world country and leading economic nation, my home country Germany, Android smartphones had a market share of 78% in the last quarter. And it's not that we cannot afford to buy iPhones - it's just that a lot of people rather spend the same money on HTC Ones, LG G2s, Samsung Galaxy Notes and Galaxy S3s and S4s instead. Most young folks over here also no longer think that Apple is cool - the trend is changing.

Apple sells more phones in some countries... and fewer in others. But Apple sells more than enough phones across the world.

When the numbers come out in January... I'm guessing Apple will have sold somewhere north of 50 million iPhones this quarter.

That's plenty... whether Apple is "cool" or not.

 

[mpantone]

Wow the snobbery in this thread is simply amazing.

And it's one of the very worst aspects about Apple fans.

I am better than you as I own an Apple product.

Look at me, I bet you wish you could afford Apple like I can, you poor person.

This thread wreaks of this, it's horrible.

It's the very very very worst part about some Apple fans, actually thinking they are better than others simply because they feel their phone is nicer

Where I live (Silicon Valley), Apple products are pretty commonplace.

The company was founded in Cupertino, and I am happy that I can support a local business, but I wouldn't do so if the products were mediocre (which they arguably did for a period of time).

It's also worth pointing out that Apple ends up being at the top of pretty much every single relevant customer satisfaction survey on this planet (computers, MP3 players, smartphones, tablets, whatever). Now, these aren't just "Apple fanboys" stuffing the ballot box. Apple's marketshare has grown; there are a lot of relatively new Apple customers who are chiming in as well.

Heck, I have pals who work at Apple; some day, they will tell me that their kid is headed to college and I can be quietly satisfied that I helped in a small way get them there by buying some Apple products.

Oh, I'm also an AAPL shareholder, so I do care that the company is highly profitable as well. I bought some shares in 2005, a couple years after I had purchased an iPod (not my first Apple product) and felt that the company showed promise that it had not shown 5-10 years earlier.

So one might say that I am a happy neighbor, customer, and part owner of Apple Inc. Isn't that a good relationship with a company that you don't work for?

 

[AEMV]

Ok, so all this tells me is that buying iOS products is more expensive than buying Android products. Nice way to try to distort the reality.

Post unit numbers, not amount spent, then youll see which OS came out on top. And do it worldwide also while you are at it.

 

[TMay]

It's supposed to be Prii.

Yep, I forgot the spelling. See my answer a few posts above..

 

[mpantone]

Ok, so all this tells me is that buying iOS products is more expensive than buying Android products. Nice way to try to distort the reality.

Post unit numbers, not amount spent, then youll see which OS came out on top. And do it worldwide also while you are at it.

No, this is not. This is not about the price of Apple or Android devices.

This is about how device owners use their devices after they acquired them -- how they spent their money at approximately 800 online retailers.

READ THE ARTICLE.

 

[HenryDJP]

Ok, so all this tells me is that buying iOS products is more expensive than buying Android products. Nice way to try to distort the reality.

Post unit numbers, not amount spent, then youll see which OS came out on top. And do it worldwide also while you are at it.

No, it doesn't tell you that at all. You have problems actually reading the entire article. Do that next time rather than focusing your eyeballs only to the article title. It really helps.

----------

Apparently too many iOS users simply can't afford a desktop/laptop. What else can explain that iOS users do their shopping on small screen, no-multiwindow/multitasking, three tabs per browser max devices? Or, perhaps, too many iOS users just can't comprehend the idea of comparative shopping?

I personally prefer doing my shopping on a desktop with 27" monitor.

Hmm, do you ever think about doing your web surfing at a different forum?

 

[mejsric]

Market Share??? Android is better coz of Market Share??

Well, as the saying goes, there are more cockroaches than humans on this planet. Does that make cockroaches better?*

 

[mpantone]

Absolutely.

For Google (the company as well as its shareholders), Android marketshare is extremely important.

>90% of Google's revenue is from their highly proprietary AdWords (and other advertising services). Google gives away the open source Android OS to handset manufacturers because they want Android handset users to use Google services, particularly Search.

For Google, you (specifically your online behavior) are the product. Their customers are the corporations who buy Google's ad services.

 

[ThisIsNotMe]

Absolutely.

For Google (the company as well as its shareholders), Android marketshare is extremely important.

>90% of Google's revenue is from their highly proprietary AdWords (and other advertising services). Google gives away the open source Android OS to handset manufacturers because they want Android handset users to use Google services, particularly Search.

For Google, you are the product. Their customers are the corporations who buy Google's ad services.

Serving ads are all fine and good but you can bet your bottom dollar that Google covets iOS users as they are the ones with disposable income.

Ads -> Poor People ->
Ads -> Middle/Rich People ->

 

[LordVic]

Serving ads are all fine and good but you can bet your bottom dollar that Google covets iOS users as they are the ones with disposable income.

Ads -> Poor People ->
Ads -> Middle/Rich People ->

I hink you misunderstand what he meant.

Goog doesn't make it's money serving you adds. Yes, there are adds in Apps. Thats not Googles doing, thats the App developer offsetting his costs or making revenue based on the adds in their apps

WHat he's talking about is google's real bread and butter money maker. Analytic data. every page click, every user data. bit, byte, screen, email. basically every single I/0 of data is analysed and put through so many data calculations.

Then that data (not personal data... we hope, but the analytic data and aggregrates) are then sold. This is googles business. the more people using their devices. the more data they have to sell.

 

[kingtj]

Yep... true ....

The only thing I'd add is that I have a hunch that tablet users spend more online than smartphone users, too. That would be because the shopping experience is better on the larger display (and often with corresponding more comfortable/pleasant to use interfaces built by the shopping sites for tablets).

Since Apple has the lion's share of the tablets out there (really only rivaled on the low end by Amazon's Kindle -- which many people are only going to use to buy books), that helps boost Apple's overall score of "more people shopping using iOS than alternatives".

So this would support the notion that people who buy iPhones tend to have more disposable income. I suppose that makes sense given the number of free low end android phones that people with less disposable income buys. I would wager those users who buy the Galaxy S4 or other high end android phones spend just about as much as iPhone users on other purchases.

 

[newagemac]

I hink you misunderstand what he meant.

Goog doesn't make it's money serving you adds. Yes, there are adds in Apps. Thats not Googles doing, thats the App developer offsetting his costs or making revenue based on the adds in their apps

WHat he's talking about is google's real bread and butter money maker. Analytic data. every page click, every user data. bit, byte, screen, email. basically every single I/0 of data is analysed and put through so many data calculations.

Then that data (not personal data... we hope, but the analytic data and aggregrates) are then sold. This is googles business. the more people using their devices. the more data they have to sell.

That's not Google's business at all. Google's business is selling ads. They don't sell data. They only use data to match up the right ads with the right advertiser. And the bottom line reality is Google needs people who actually are able to buy things because advertisers don't pay for Google's ads when Google's ads don't convert to sales. So Google doesn't need "users", they need buyers. Users are almost worthless to them.

That's why Google needs iOS so badly and are clamoring to put their apps on iOS. Those millions upon millions of poor users buying bottom of the barrel Android phones all over the world aren't nearly as valuable to Google. It's also why developers develop apps for iOS over Android and why web sites focus their efforts on iOS devices. And unfortunately for Android, because of its inherit business model compared to iOS, this will likely always be the case.

 

[LordVic]

That's not Google's business at all. Google's business is selling ads. They don't sell data. They only use data to match up the right ads with the right advertiser. And the bottom line reality is Google needs people who actually are able to buy things because advertisers don't pay for Google's ads when Google's ads don't convert to sales. So Google doesn't need "users", they need buyers. Users are almost worthless to them.

That's why Google needs iOS so badly and are clamoring to put their apps on iOS. Those millions upon millions of poor users buying bottom of the barrel Android phones all over the world aren't nearly as valuable to Google. It's also why developers develop apps for iOS over Android and why web sites focus their efforts on iOS devices. And unfortunately for Android, because of its inherit business model compared to iOS, this will likely always be the case.

http://www.google.ca/analytics/

not their business at all?

No, it IS their business (yes, they do sell ad space too though)

Why they want iOS is because it's a walled garden that they've slowly had data puled from them. no more google maps. no more google services. google now that can't access most of your data. it's like a black whole of data to them that they just can't get to. thats lost revnue and profit as it means without getting on iOS, it's just data they can't analyse.

 

[AppleScruff1]

These statistics are about percentage of internet traffic, not percentage of phones. Anecdotally I am seeing more Android phones too, especially oversized phablets, but most of the people I see with them are just using them for talk & text like they did with their feature phones. The typical Android user seems to not really need, want, understand, or even use a smart phone. For the most part they have an Android phablet simply because that is what the phone store salesman pushed on them. Theses statistics from IBM indicate that is reality, not just a perception.

I'd like to hear more about this typical Android user. Are the iPhone users superior in intellect and technological prowess?

----------

Most of my workmates who earn exactly the same as me... a 'medium' income within $85k-$130k use Androids.

For whatever reason most perceive Google's store as having all apps for free and Apple's as charging for everything. Android users also seem to go for raw numbers/gimmicks vs style and real-world performance.

For example my colleague has his quad-core Android plugged in all day because the battery (which he'll always boast is 4x the size of mine... so is 'better') becomes drained within ~3 hours of usage. His camera takes high MP, useless quality photos... which he can view on a lower resolution but physically larger screen (which doesn't fit into his pockets so has to be carried in his hand or a man bag).

It's hard to describe the iPhone users (me) vs the Android users. Takes me back to the old Mac v Windows days. Style, simplicity and real-world performance vs big ugly boxes made of cheap plastic that I've never really seen the sense behind.

IMO this situation will always exist. There's a market for us and a market for them... enough said.

What about the pre teens carrying around iPhones? Do they appreciate the high quality and real world performance of the iPhone or do you think they have one because it's cool?

 

[tongxinshe]

Apple’s problem is in the unsubsidized markets, it is doing totally fine in the subsidized markets, for now. The problem is, the unsubsidized markets is far far far larger, and a lot of the subsidized markets are converting, too. Apple need to stop looking at the subsidized market and focus its efforts on where the crisis is coming — the unsubsidized markets.

 

[Michael Scrip]

That's why Google needs iOS so badly and are clamoring to put their apps on iOS. Those millions upon millions of poor users buying bottom of the barrel Android phones all over the world aren't nearly as valuable to Google. It's also why developers develop apps for iOS over Android and why web sites focus their efforts on iOS devices. And unfortunately for Android, because of its inherit business model compared to iOS, this will likely always be the case.

So much for Android "winning" because they have the most market share.

It appears all that Android market share isn't very valuable after all.

They can boast about selling a zillion units a day... but it still won't mean anything

 

[X38]

The only thing I'd add is that I have a hunch that tablet users spend more online than smartphone users, too.

In fact, that's exactly what the article said. Except that their conclusion was not based on a hunch, but on the traffic data collected by IBM.

 

[mpantone]

That's not Google's business at all. Google's business is selling ads. They don't sell data. They only use data to match up the right ads with the right advertiser. And the bottom line reality is Google needs people who actually are able to buy things because advertisers don't pay for Google's ads when Google's ads don't convert to sales. So Google doesn't need "users", they need buyers. Users are almost worthless to them.

That's why Google needs iOS so badly and are clamoring to put their apps on iOS. Those millions upon millions of poor users buying bottom of the barrel Android phones all over the world aren't nearly as valuable to Google. It's also why developers develop apps for iOS over Android and why web sites focus their efforts on iOS devices. And unfortunately for Android, because of its inherit business model compared to iOS, this will likely always be the case.

This is correct.

Google collects user data so advertisers have better accuracy in placing ads to their target audience. The better advertisers can do that, the higher the chance of a click through that ultimately ends up in a sale.

iOS users are incredibly valuable, far more desirable to advertisers than Android users because of the higher click through rates, the higher buy rates, the higher spending per transaction.

I suppose a more accurate description is that Google end users' data are the raw ingredients that contribute to what it is that Google actually sells (ads).

 

[X38]

I'd like to hear more about this typical Android user. Are the iPhone users superior in intellect and technological prowess?

I have no idea, nor does is matter. I stand by the explanation for the disproportionate lack of internet traffic on Android devices that I offered - that typical Android users choose Android not because they are particularly looking for a smart phone or even specifically Android, but because Android is now the prevalent system on the commodity phones that are pushed on customers who don't particularly care what phone they get as long as they can talk & text. That doesn't mean typical Android users are intellectually inferior, just that Android is more commonly used by people for whom the choice of phone is not as important.
No need to get your panties in a knot.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I have no idea, nor does is matter. I stand by the explanation for the disproportionate lack of internet traffic on Android devices that I offered - that typical Android users choose Android not because they are particularly looking for a smart phone or even specifically Android, but because Android is now the prevalent system on the commodity phones that are pushed on customers who don't particularly care what phone they get as long as they can talk & text. That doesn't mean typical Android users are intellectually inferior, just that Android is more commonly used by people for whom the choice of phone is not as important.
No need to get your panties in a knot.

Actually this is what you said:
These statistics are about percentage of internet traffic, not percentage of phones. Anecdotally I am seeing more Android phones too, especially oversized phablets, but most of the people I see with them are just using them for talk & text like they did with their feature phones. The typical Android user seems to not really need, want, understand, or even use a smart phone. For the most part they have an Android phablet simply because that is what the phone store salesman pushed on them. Theses statistics from IBM indicate that is reality, not just a perception.

Lots of assumptions. And much humor too, especially observing what people are doing on their phones and concluding that all they do is talk and text.

 

[Klae17]

No, really. Headlines should establish the material that follows. A clear first sentence also helps greatly. Such as,

"According to an IBM report, users of iOS devices placed more than five times as many online holiday orders as Android users, and spent nearly twice as much per order."

Now nobody is confused, even if they choose to read no further.

That's the worst headline I've read in a while. Agreed.

"Retailers see 5X as much sales from iOS than Android for the Holidays."

 

[jav6454]

He can be excused for not getting this from a first reading, it was confusingly written. I had to go to the source article to be sure about what was being said here.

This... article needed a little clarity in original title and eventually the writing of it. At first it seemed like a iPhone v Android sale article.

----------

You didn't even read the article correctly, it wasn't about iOS users buying Apple products, it was about iOS users shopping online period

Thank you capt'n Obvious, no need to point out something that was pointed out in the first place.

 

[Michael Scrip]

http://www.google.ca/analytics/

not their business at all?

No, it IS their business (yes, they do sell ad space too though)

Doesn't Google make most of their money on ad sales?

How does Google make money? No less an authority than the company's CEO posed the question, hopefully rhetorically, in a recent letter to shareholders.

Or as the company's annual report succinctly puts it, "We generate revenue primarily by delivering relevant, cost-effective online advertising."

- investopedia.com

About Ads

One of the things that makes Google search especially valuable is that it’s completely free. So, how does Google make money and continue to drive constant innovation? We give advertisers the opportunity to place clearly-marked ads alongside our search results. We strive to help people find ads that are relevant and useful, just like our results.

- From Google themselves

There may be a heavy amount of analytics going on at Google... but Google IS an advertising company.

That's a far cry from your claim "yeah they sell some ads too"

 

[mpantone]

Doesn't Google make most of their money on ad sales?

Yup, and you don't need to point to any source other than Google's SEC filings.

 

[Fanaticalism]

For example my colleague has his quad-core Android plugged in all day because the battery (which he'll always boast is 4x the size of mine... so is 'better') becomes drained within ~3 hours of usage. His camera takes high MP, useless quality photos... which he can view on a lower resolution but physically larger screen (which doesn't fit into his pockets so has to be carried in his hand or a man bag).

If you don't mind my asking, what phone does your colleague have?