Apple iOS dominates Euro smartphone usage
Europeans far less keen on Android than Americans are
How have the great mobile operating systems been faring in the UK and Europe over the past year? Mobile internet access gives us a picture.
The snapshot isn't an unbiased one, mind. The data comes from StatCounter, which tracks what browsers, operating systems and so forth are used to access the 3m-odd webpages which it claims make use of its free visitor counter.
The obvious caveat aside - that StatCounter-tracked pages may not be representative of the whole - let's see what the numbers tell us.
We've masked the point-by-point numbers for clarity. In any case, what matters is the relative spacing of the lines, not the precise percentages.
European Smartphone Usage
Source: StatCounter
And it's interesting to get some Euro-centric figures. Global sales tend to mask regional trends. The other most common data-set, for the US, gives a very slanted view of the market.
Europe as a whole clearly favours iOS - its market share has run between 50 per cent and 45 per cent between January 2010 and January 2011 - which is well ahead of nearest rivals Symbian, BlackBerry and Android.
It's no surprise to see the decline in Symbian usage - any more than it is to see the rise in Android mobile browsing, but BlackBerry usage certainly appears to have peaked, hitting 18 per cent and then falling back. And while Apple's share is trending downward, it's a very gentle decline.
UK Smartphone Usage
Source: StatCounter
In the UK, Apple and Research in Motion are the two key smartphone players, each battling the other, with one's rise accompanies by the other's fall, oscillating about a line at 42 per cent.
These numbers broadly mirror over-the-counter sales.
Android usage is growing here too, but it's still below 15 per cent and has only just begun to get clear space ahead of its nearest rivals. But it is rising, and that will push down the line over which iOS and BlackBerry are fighting.
Crucially, the strength that Android is showing in the US, is not yet a factor in the UK and Europe. That may change over the coming year, but the Google OS is going to have to gain a lot of support if it's to mount a serious challenge to Apple and BlackBerry here, and against Apple in the wider continent. ®
COMMENTS
Trendspotting
Nah I don't think so. I personally think this article fails to emphasize the obvious downward trend of iOS and the obvious upward trend of Android. So in a sense, no, europeans are not less keen on Android than Americans *are*, but were.
Re: Android is fading out like everyone predicted...
So, this is what it looks like inside the reality-distortion bubble.
Mmmmm, fruity...
STATS101
Can't really put too much faith in these "statistics" since the data is gathered using an opt-in counter method. Did these guys sleep through Statistics 101?
Hmm - self selection
There's a terrible joke "How do you know if someone has an iPhone? They tell you...."
Probably true in most cases. Certainly with business phones like the RIM machines, I don't think they'd be taking part in things like this.
THis is all however irrelevant. What I put fingers to keyboards to whinge about was the lack of consistency of plot colours between the two graphs - IOS stays blue, but the others are all over the place.
If I was marking this, definitely a grade killer.
Bad use of statistics
Counting web hits does NOT tell you how popular an operating system is.
It DOES tell you how much website traffic comes from a particular OS, which when used in conjunction with actual sales/activation figures can tell you how prolific the average user of a particular OS is in accessing your sample sites.
Some OS may use data more with apps than others, or users of different OS may have different browsing habits and not use the sites in the sample... and Android is used on a lot of lower range phones, likely without as much data allowance, or users not so inclined to 'go online'.
The conclusion "Europeans not as keen on Android" is not really supported by the statistics on offer here. No judgement on OS merits from me, just on the use of statistics.
