Android nears 50% mark in the US, comScore reports

[mrstickball]

famousringo said:

mrstickball said:

One issue, though, is that your comparing apples to oranges in some cases, especially in regards to the iOS user base. NPD tracks hardware, but not install base, which is more likely to be indicative by ComScore's report. 

Oh really? That's news to me. Wait... from my two posts in this very thread:

 

famousringo said:

Just so everybody is clear, comscore tracks installed base, not unit sales. 

famousringo said:

Also, remember that NPD's numbers are unit sales, while comScore's numbers are installed base. 

But why aren't handset sales a good indication of iOS' success?

For Apple, there is no better metric for success.

For developers, neither comScore nor NPD are good metrics of success. They need to worry about ad impressions, app revenues, and usage levels. You might think installed base is a good proxy for these things, and there's certainly a correlation, but various factors completely outweigh Android's massive installed base advantage. Despite Android's install base, Google itself sees two thirds of mobile searches coming from iOS.

In the crazy bizarro world of mobile, it's quite possible that Google makes more money from iOS than from Android, and Microsoft makes more money from Android than Windows Phone 7.

The only stakeholders I can think of who would find comScore a definitively better metric than NPD are the carriers, and they seem willing to bend over backwards for the iPhone anyway.

 

I'd say developers are more interested in the number of people actively using the platform. And since this is, you know, a game sales website, such a metric may be important here