Since the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6, I have been patiently waiting to find out some new results on the status of the mobile market. Sure, there are plenty of sites to get this information from, but there is one report in particular that I have been waiting for, and now it has arrived. When comScore reports the findings of their MobiLens service, as they did today, I am always curious about one thing in particular; the everlasting competition between Google Android and Apple iOS. However, their MobiLens findings include more than just the status of the race to the top of the platform market.
However, for this platform battle, Google seems as though it cannot be beat. In their findings from May of 2012, comScore reported that Android accounted for 50.9% of all smartphone subscribers. Now, the company is reporting that for August of this year, Android has 52.6% of the total of all smartphone subscribers. Apple, on the other hand had only 31.9% in May 2012, and for August, their percentage went up to 34.3%. The rest of the listed platforms (RIM, Microsoft, Symbian) went down in percentage from their May 2012 numbers, which is where the growth of the two biggest names came from. However, as you may have noticed, Apple grew more in terms of percentage points than did Android. Where Android only grew 1.7 points, Apple grew 2.4.
The findings also covered mobile content use for August of 2012, which will tell marketers just what people are doing on their smartphones while pondering their next move in their mobile marketing campaigns. Here is what comScore wrote in their page of highlights for their findings;
In August, 75.6 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device (up 0.8 percentage points). Downloaded applications were used by 53.4 percent of subscribers (up 2.3 percentage points), while browsers were used by 52 percent (up 2.2 percentage points). Accessing of social networking sites or blogs increased 1.6 percentage points to 38.3 percent of mobile subscribers. Game-playing was done by 34 percent of the mobile audience (up 0.5 percentage points), while 28.3 percent listened to music on their phones (up 1.3 percentage points).
The greatest point changes from May to August came with the use of downloaded apps, with a 2.3 point change, use of a mobile internet browser with a 2.2 point change, as well as accessing social networks via mobile apps or blogs with a 1.6 point change. All of these changes were in the positive direction, giving hope to marketers who have been spending ad dollars marketing in these three mobile areas specifically.
It is findings like these that help marketers keep up to date with the happenings of the mobile market, helping them to make decisions and not mess up. From these findings, we can see that Google is still strong at the top, and that people are using their phones for a lot more than just texting these days. It will be interesting to see the next set of findings from comScore, where Apple’s new device and operating system will come in to play.
