Android vs iPhone Australian Market Share

Davy Adams

Davy Adams is the Managing Director of IDG Australia, publisher of Computerworld and CIO.

There’s been a lot of huff and puff about Android vs iPhone market share lately, but when I look at which smartphone people use it’s almost always an iPhone, albeit with the occasional Blackberry. So I was curious as to how the mobile market was evolving in Australia. With that in mind I analysed the Australian browsing data for computerworld.com.au, during May to September, 2010. Interesting stuff.

Between May and September, we saw mobile browsing increase almost three-fold. Much of that growth happened in June as a whole new generation of Apple obsessives arrived home from their late night queues, unwrapped their iPads and tapped their grubby fingers on their touchscreens. But, after June, the “iPad revolution” was pretty well over with visits tracking the same growth as the overall market. Between June and September iPad visitors grew by 20 per cent, a little less than the 22 per cent overall mobile traffic growth rate for that time.

While the iPhone reigned supreme in May, accounting for 70 per cent of all mobile visits, it had dropped down to just 52 per cent by September. Between June and September iPhone visits grew by 12 per cent. Looking around at what phones people are using, that doesn’t surprise me overly – Apple must be running out of people to sell iPhones to.

So what’s eating Apple? The answer: Android.

During May to September, Android’s growth has gone from just 8 per cent of the market to 15 per cent. And actual Android visitors increased almost five-fold. We recently wrote about why Android was good for business and it looks like the market is beginning to agree.

I ran the numbers by Mark Novosel, market analyst for telecommunications at IDC Research who said: “It doesn't surprise me that you're seeing such strong growth in Android users accessing the site. From Q1 to Q2 2010, we saw a strong increase in Android device shipments to Australia, from 2.1 per cent in Q1 to 7.1 per cent of the smartphone market in Q2, albeit from a low base in 2009 and the start of the year.”

If the trend continues at this rate – iPhone dropping at two per cent a month and Android rising by two per cent - the numbers suggest that Android will overtake the iPhone in less than a year.

Credit where credit’s due, Apple pretty well built the smartphone market. But, can they keep it?

May CW Mobile Visitor Data

1iPhone70%
2iPad10%
3Android8%
4iPod5%
5SymbianOS3%
6BlackBerry2%

July CW Mobile Visitor Data

1iPhone55%
2iPad26%
3Android8%
4iPod4%
5SymbianOS3%
6BlackBerry2%

September CW Mobile Visitor Data

1iPhone52%
2iPad26%
3Android15%
4iPod3%
5SymbianOS2%
6BlackBerry2%

Tags: mobile, Android, iPhone

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