iPhone OS Still Tops, but Android, WebOS Are Gaining Share

An AdMob report on mobile phone use around the world shows the iPhone reigns, the Palm Pre's WebOS and Google's Android are on the rise and Indonesia is the third-biggest source of smartphone traffic.


AdMob, which measures handset use rather than sales, by analyzing data from ad requests, impressions and clicks, served up its August smartphone OS data in a Sept. 30 report that points out both expected and noteworthy findings.

The Apple iPhone OS' share of the smartphone operating system worldwide market grew from 33 percent in February to 40 percent in August, AdMob found. (AdMob noted that it didn't include the iPod Touch in this ranking because, despite running the Apple OS, it isn't a phone.) Android also showed growth from February to August, from 2 percent up to 7 percent, and the newly arrived WebOS on the Palm Pre grabbed 4 percent of the market share.

Meanwhile, Research In Motion's operating system share fell from 10 to 8 percent, Windows fell from 7 to 4 percent and the Palm OS fell from 3 percent to a near-extinct 1 percent.

Which devices are accessing the mobile Web and applications?

During the month of August, the top four handsets to do so were the iPhone, the iPod Touch, the Samsung R450 and the HTC Dream. The top four smartphones were the iPhone, the Dream, the Pre and the RIM BlackBerry 8300.

In the United States, judging by ad requests from the OS, the iPhone represented 50 percent of smartphone use, followed by RIM BlackBerrys with 14 percent of the pie and Android devices with 13 percent. In a respectable fourth place came WebOS phones, with 9 percent.

"Android continues its strong growth in both North America and Europe. Ad requests from Android devices grew 17 percent month over month in August, following a 50 percent increase in July," wrote an AdMob representative identified only as "Mike" on the site's post introducing the data. "Given the new devices launching in [the fourth quarter], it could be a huge holiday season for the Android platform."

Outside of North America, Nokia handsets top the smartphone lists, and AdMob pointed out that "Nokia's new touch screen devices—the N97 and XpressMusic—are both gaining traction and were the No. 4 and 5 smartphones in Western Europe." AdMob also sees encouraging growth from the Pre, though concedes, "this is just one month of data and we'll continue to monitor it."

Where in the world is all the smartphone traffic coming from? AdMob found 46.5 percent of ad requests came from the United States, followed by India with 6.2 percent of requests. Perhaps surprisingly, the third position goes to Indonesia, which saw 5.5 percent of requests, and the fourth, fifth and sixth positions respectively go to the United Kingdom, the Philippines and Mexico.

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