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Android Advances on iPhone

March 25th, 2010
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AdMob released it’s February 2010 Mobile Metrics Report.  In the two horse iPhone-Android race, Android has continued its growth to represent 32% of the AdMob ad requests.  As argued earlier (Android Catching iPhone), AdMob ad requests are a forward looking indicator of which OS platform is likely to be of the most interest to Entrepreneurs in the mobile sector.  It continues to look like the momentum is with Android.

Of February 2010 iPhone & Android AdMob ad requests, Android represented 32% of the total.

  • Rita_morais
    Why is this happening? What are the advantages of Android over iPhone?
  • everploeg
    Android and iPhone each have their pluses and minuses. But, the two key drivers for Android's likely long-run domination of iPhone are:
    (1) the fact that Apple can only release a very few (one, so far) new device per year, whereas there are multiple handset vendors releasing handfuls of new Android devices, so there is more SKUs on the Android side; and
    (2) unlike the Computer industry, the handset industry has the mobile operators as an important part of the distribution equation. In most geographies, the standard practice is for the mobile operators to buy the handsets, and then re-sell them at a loss, in conjunction with a profitable one or two year long service contract. Due to the mobile operators' general desire to differentiate themselves from one another, they'd prefer not to all sell the same phone, so all the different Android form factors are much more appealing to them than single (or, limited range) iPhone.
  • Eric Ver Ploeg
    @Slingshot. Good question.

    The Android trend has been going since long before the acquisition was announced, and doesn't seem to have changed its trajectory since that announcement. And given the FTC scrutiny that is now publicly discussed (I've heard about this FTC effort from other industry players for months now), one would have to assume--I have no inside info here--that the AdMob team has continued to run their business as if the acquisition would not go through.

    Also, the data from Flurry corroborates the trends we see here (if you back out the iPad induced iPhone project starts), so I think this is certainly directionally correct.
  • Slingshot
    Eric - quick question:
    Do you think that the acquisition of Admob by Google influences these stats?
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