facts, not fiction
From last year, the first half of 2009 shows that in smartphones, Nokia, RIM-Blackberry and Apple have grown market share. HTC has held steady. In the operating systems, Symbian has shrunk but still commands half of the global market. RIM and Apple are big rivals and growing. Android is a tiny rival and growing. Windows Mobile is crashing and Palm is nearly invisible. I would appreciate it, if future journalists reporting on smartphones bother to quote the facts, not some silly analysis of "market shares" based on Admob stats etc.
You can always count on Tomi Ahonen to set the record straight, when it comes to the mobile world. And here he does that beautifully yet again. If you're not going to read his entire post, I will be angry at you. Seriously.
I hope you have read it all.
Now, I have a few things to add so that when bloggers want to report on something like this again, they'll know what it is they're writing about.
The thing everyone quoted when they recently said that the iPhone has a 40+% market share in smartphones was an AdMob statistic. Let's pause here for a bit.
AdMob is a leading mobile ad network. But what isn't 'leading' these days? Anyway. Their stats refer, naturally I'd say, to the 'content' they serve. Ads, specifically. Now, on the sites or apps or whatnot that have AdMob ads on them, that percentage of visits came from the iPhone and so on.
Get it?
Good.
Now there are always some stats floating around that show that the iPhone is 'leading' mobile internet usage.
This is normal. Remember, when you buy an iPhone, you are REQUIRED to purchase a monthly data plan (absurdly expensive too, in most cases). This is something you probably are made aware of when you make the purchase.
You are aware of the fact that you're paying a bucketload of money per month for internet access.
Isn't it then reasonable to think that you'll use it? I mean, isn't t reasonable for you to say "well, if they make me pay for it, I might as well try it?".
Exactly.
As for what market share should mean (and really does, if you know anything about anything), that's sold devices. Where you can go to Tomi's numbers for reference. Because they're not his. They're quoted from the companies that actually, you know, report on market shares for a living.
Thanks.
