How Apple and Nokia divvy up the world
Measured by mobile ad traffic, it's still a two-smartphone race
Source: AdMob
Forget North and South. East and West. First World, Second World and Third.
According to AdMob, the mobile advertising company acquired late last year by Google (GOOG), the world is divided -- at least in terms of smartphone usage -- into two parts: Apple's and Nokia's.
In its Mobile Metrics Report for Dec. 2009, issued Thursday morning, AdMob surveys eight regions -- from North America to Oceania -- and finds some clear patterns:
- Apple's (AAPL) iPhone OS dominates the North American, Australian and Western European markets.
- Nokia's (NOK) Symbian is the most popular operating system in Africa and Asia, and continues to have a significant market share in Eastern Europe and Latin America.
However the numbers, as AdMob measures them, are trending in Apple's favor. Apple's share of requests in the AdMob network increased from 9% in Q4 2008 to 36% in Q4 2009 while Nokia's share declined from 33% in Q4 2008 to 18% in Q4 2009.
(Google's Android is also on the rise, climbing from 1% of smartphone traffic in Q4 2008 to 16% in Q4 2009.)
Below the fold: The world of smartphones, according to AdMob.
Source: AdMob
[Follow Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Twitter @philiped]
In the writers defense, there is the line underneath: "Measured by mobile ad traffic, it's still a two-smartphone race"
Of course, since Android is only 5% behind Symbian and RIM is 10% behind behind Android, I'd call it a three-smartphone race. But that's just me.
That said, I'm not sure what measuring by advertisements delivered actually says. As has been pointed out, since the iPhone has more Apps and many of them are "ad-supported" (I have a nice free backgammon game on my iPhone which displays ads) versus the number of Apps for RIM and Android which use AdMob, I'm not surprised that AdMob sends more requests to iPhones than anyone else.
The question is, what does this say about iPhones? Does it say that there are twice as many iPhones as Symbian phones? Obviously not.
All it really says is that iPhone users see more ads than the other platforms. I'm not sure if this is a feature that Apple wants to promote.
As stated, this is not market share data in terms of handsets sold. That would likely show Nokia leading in every region except North America.
But this data is of interest with regards to the future, as advertising is expected to someday "subsidize" more and more of the mobile handset and network costs. What platform does one go to get eyeballs?
I'm quite surprised that iPhone is as high as it is in Asia and Eastern Europe.
@D, Before you call something a "lie", perhaps you should know what the stats are measuring.
The stats are from 2 sources, ads placed in mobile websites, and mobile apps. Since the iPhone usually does NOT go to mobile websites, it is being undercounted from that source.
What does it say, when your comment about BB, Symbian and WinMo users when you preface it with " just don't surf the web that much... because the web browsing experience on those devices isn't the best".
Don't you get it? This is about mobile internet use, not the number of smartphones.
oh, yawn, what else is new. a negative story about nokia posted by a cnn reporter. the same "news" company that has an apple computer on the desk while the newcaster is reporting.
Mr D., AdMob;s stats are not based on browsers, but on advertisements delivered to mobile phones, through web-sites or applications. Therefore it is based on much more than just mobile browsing statistics, but also applications that show advertisements.
AdMob's statistics measure different things from NetApplications' statistics.
Omg, There are only two big names: Nokia and Samsung. They will divvy up the world. Apple will stay as a local actor. Where do all those "experts" come from
the analysts is misleading! Apple DOES NOT have 51% of the smartphones market shares!!!!! there market shares stand at 17% while NOkia at 39%... Nokia market shares of smartphones worldwide is more then Iphone, Blackberry, HTC combined! please, do not post misleading reports!
ex ped: AdMob is not reporting market shares. It's reporting share of smartphone ad requests, a very different thing.
Now, that I think about it, the Canalys chart may have bars of differing width to indicate the relative sizes of the markets, as this Admob chart doesn't. Clearly, Oceania is nowhere near as big as the other markets. Now, that would be an informative chart, giving us info on 2 axes.
Pretty stunning chart. Reminds me of the Canalys charts.
It seems to me that the iPhone is dominant in ad requests in every region except Africa and Asia. And in Asia, we know that the iPhone is coming on very strong in Korea, and strong in Japan. I think that's important as Korea and Japan are the home turf for Samsung, LG and Sony Ericsson. The Asia graph is skewed by China, of course, where Nokia's Symbian is dominant.
Still, just an amazing chart, considering Apple is selling just two models of phone the 3G and 3GS.
Lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Let's be careful here, aren't these stats based on mobile /browsers/?
That makes a big difference.
I'd easily believe that more than half of the website hits by smartphones in North America were iPhones, as it has the best browsing experience (maybe tied with the new Droid and Nexus One devices, hence the large Android share).
But let's not automatically equate these numbers with how many smartphones are out there being used (read: have been sold and have generated revenue for the associated companies).
There are plenty of die hard Blackberry users who just don't surf the web that much. Same for Symbian (Nokia) and Windows Mobile users. Just because the web browsing experience on those devices isn't the best, doesn't mean they aren't still selling pretty well.
This statistics is very misleading. For example, I browse the web really *a lot* with my N95, but I'm using Opera Mini as almost all Symbian users. The user experience with Mini is better than with iPhone native browser (because of the proxy compression). However, I think Mini users are not shown in this stat at all. You can get a completely different picture from Opera's state of the Mobile Web report http://www.opera.com/smw/ which shown how dominant Nokia is.