Google Inc’s (GOOG) Play Store vs Apple Inc’s (AAPL) App Store, this fight is ongoing, and when it comes to App usage it looks like Apple App store just scored a point. According to a study Google Play had witnessed an 8 percent jump in its App Revenue from 19 percent in November 2012 to 27 percent in April 2013. Though Android devices are gaining on the market share, it does not reflect on their App share.
According to the Recent numbers found out by a market research firm Flurry shows that Android users spend 20% less time using their apps than iOS users spend.
Mary Ellen Gordon, lead author of the study and director of Industry Insights and Analysis at Flurry, said that Flurry tracked down four years of its own data to understand the arch rivals Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS leadership, strength and weakness, market share,App share.
Android Devices: The Number Trend
According to the report there were about 10 percent more active Android devices in the world than iOS devices as Android devices became more popular, people started switching from featured phones to Android phones, though there are more Android users, the App usage time is less as the users were not completely aware about the Apps and features so they spent less time on the Apps.
Device Market Share
This year, the numbers of Android devices have reached 750 million, especially because of Samsung the iOS numbers have also increased but not enough to beat Android.
App Revenue
According to a Study, the App Store generates $ 5.1 million in sales per day for the top 200 grossing Apps when compared to Google Play’s revenue $1.1 million. Though Android is gaining, Apple App Store has all the revenues.
App Market Share
Though Android leads in device market share, iOS beats Android when it comes to App market share. The report shows that iOS users collectively spend more time in Apps.
Fragmentation
There is a wide range of Android products, many screen sizes, memory configurations, versions of the operating systems, because of the fragmentation in Android market may have contributed to lower app usage, and this fragmentation makes it harder for the App developers to develop the apps.
User Preference
According to Flurry Apple popularized the concept of mobile app with the App store, that’s the reason people were interested in iPhone and iPad. The theory says that Apple users were looking for pocket computers that were app-centric while Android users were just getting Smartphones where Apps were a nice thing to have, but not important.
Though Apple is leading in terms of App usage time, Android is growing and gaining but if you look at both the Apple App Store and Google Play Store in marketer’s perspective, Google Play Store is more preferable, it’s easy to use, easily available, has a wide range to choose from and “App usage” is just a small hurdle for Android to overcome.
OH guys….stop with this android fragmentation. I’m an android developer and the time needed to support older versions is almost zero. There are so many libraries (from Google and third party developers) that you feel like you are developing for the latest version. Sometimes there are small issues, or bigger one, if your app does something more complicated (audio/video processing..) and you need new versions of Android but in the general case you won’t have troubles supporting 2.2/2.3 and up.
This thing with fragmentation is in the past, but reporters keep using it without knowing what’s the current situation.
We spend less time using apps on Android , because we get things done faster. DUH!
“Loosing”?