An interesting study into Android and iOS

[rocketpig]

Scoobes said:

rocketpig said:

Scoobes said:
Is that 'revenue per user' stat including money from advertising? The amount of free apps that have advertising on the Android market place is astronomical.

I believe so... It claims "revenue generated". I'd believe that counts for ads as well.

But as a long-time website operator myself, I will tell you that 99% of the time, it's better to get money upfront for a paid app than to rely on ad-based revenue. It's really difficult (and your apps needs to be centered around repeated, long-term viewing... most aren't) to earn back even half the money from ads that you will get from just $1 per user.

I suppose the next thing to look at is how many users are on Android vs iOS. If it's not too different then thats a major plus for iOS, but if Android has a significant user base advantage that that could go a ways to mitigate the loss of revenue per user.

In Q1 2012, it looks like Android had 59%, iPhone 23%. Of course, that is only smartphones and doesn't include the tablet market so that share would dip for Android, rise for iOS. Also, Apple's iPhone marketshare is pretty cyclical since they only release one phone a year. In comparison to Android, it will probably dip next quarter then spike in the next two quarters as the new iPhone hits shelves.

In short, it's hard to say what actual market share is for both platforms. It's safe to say that Android has about twice the market share, I think.