Android Phone Tips
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| Android Phone Tips |
Google's Android platform has seen growth that exceeds even the wildest of expectations. Android now holds 48 percent of global market share, while the iPhone has reached second place with 19 percent. Of the 56 countries examined, Android was the leader in 35. Android exploded from 33.3 percent share in Q4 of last year to 48 percent in Q2. In the last six months, iOS has grown from roughly 16 percent to 19 percent, a 19 percent growth. Android has seen a 379 percent increase in sales when compared to just one year ago, and Android and iOS, when tallied together, hold more than two-thirds of the market.
Google’sAndroid Market, as we’ve noted before, is a different beast than Apple’s App Store from both a consumer and a developer perspective. The company found that Android Market is paced by a number of very prolific app makers, and it also sees more updates per app than the App Store. According to Mobilewalla, which pulled data from May, Android developers that have created more than 100 apps contributed 53 percent of the total apps in Android Market. That’s more than twice the rate in the App Store, where developers with more than 100 apps represented 23 percent of all apps.
That suggests that while Android Market is growing fast, it’s being driven by a smaller set of developers that are pushing out a whole lot of apps, which could be contributing to Android’s reputation for having a lot of low quality apps, copy-cat programs and simple wallpaper apps, though Mobilewalla said wallpaper apps are a relatively small portion of all apps.
It could be that Android’s low barrier for uploading apps to the Market makes it easy for devs to flood the store with a lot of apps. Mobilewalla also found that apps on Android saw an average of 0.8 updates per app compared to 0.3 updates per app on iOS. That suggests Android developers are changing their apps more than twice as often as iOS developers. “The only way we can explain that is Android developers are just doing more,” said Datta.
Android developers don’t have to submit each update for approval by Google, so it encourages fast iterations and continual improvements. Android fragmentation may also be an issue here. Mobilewalla also found that usage of apps on Android is concentrated on the top apps, while iOS users are more likely to try more apps. The company said that among the top 30 apps, Android Market apps had between 11,000 and 20,000 ratings compared to about 6,000 ratings for the top 30 apps in the Apple App Store.
But when you consider the next 210 apps beyond the top 30, Android’s average ratings per app plummets to just a few hundred per app while Apple’s ratings counts remain between 2,000 and 6,000. Android Market got off to a later start than App Store, but it’s growing fast (250,000 apps compared to 425,000 in the App Store).
By. Android Phone Tips
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