Millennial Media, the largest independent mobile advertising network in the US, released its monthly MobileMix report today. It has a detailed breakdown of smartphone device, OS, and carrier usage across their network for the month of March. The report is quite comprehensive, and makes a few interesting points on the current state of the Smartphone and Connected Device world.
Since we haven’t seen any first quarter reports yet, we don’t yet have a lot of hard data of the effect of the Verizon iPhone on smartphone space. Since MobileMix is a monthly report, it is able to give us an early glimpse of its impact. According to Millennial Media’s data, iOS usage on their network grew 11% from February to March, mostly on the strength of the Verizon iPhone. While Android still leads iOS in overall usage for the fourth straight month, iOS did regain 7% of share head-to-head, reversing the downward trend spurred on recently by the sheer volume of available Android devices.
Even more interesting, however, is that despite Android’s lead in overall usage share, it is still at quite a disadvantage in application revenue share. Android still trails iOS by double digits when it comes to generating profits for developers, which is the engine that has been driving Apple’s App Store since it opened. This finding seems to bear out continued statements from several well-known iOS application developers who are playing the waiting game when it comes to Android development. It also sheds some light on Google’s recent decision to do more active curation of the Android Market, as Apple’s more hands-on approach seems to have had a stabilizing effect in the eyes of many customers and developers.
The March MobileMix report also goes on to present several figures we already are familiar with. Basically, when you look at the smartphone market from a manufacturer or device by device perspective, Apple’s iPhone is absolutely dominant. No other single manufacturer or phone of any kind even comes close to it in sales or usage.
I’ve been following analyst reports for this site for a while now, and all during that time I have been begging for something more than we typically get from the familiar suspects. MobileMix actually isn’t an analyst report, and that is probably what makes it so good in comparison. Instead of taking a small slice of market information, sticking a finger in the air to see which way the wind is currently blowing, and then trying to predict what will happen four years down the road based on that (yes Gartner, I’m talking about your recent fail), this report simply presents cold, hard facts broken down in a variety of ways. With this much solid data presented in a way that is easy to understand, you don’t need the analyst. You can do that all on your own.
One of the major complaints I have had with all types of mobile device market reports is the fact that we rarely see something that looks at multiple segments of what is a very connected marketplace. Smartphones, tablets, media devices, and set top boxes running the same OSs don’t exist in vacuums. They all go together hand-in-hand, and they really need to be analyzed as such. While the focus of the March MobileMix report is on smartphones, a second look at the main graphic will show you that Millennial Media is tracking all of these other devices, and keeping tab on them, as well.
You can see that, while smartphones still make up the majority of device usage, feature phones are still out there being used to consume mobile advertising, and “connected devices,” which would include tablets, media players, and other non-phone devices, are a steadily growing group that is really making a big impact in the mobile advertising market. In fact, the March report specifically mentions that Apple’s iOS application revenues doubled month-over-month, and that the lead was mostly due to the impact of the iPad. It also shows a 3% increase in connected device usage from February.
Even better, the February version of the MobileMix report actually went so far as to break down the connected device market specifically by OS, and give sales figures for tablets by OS.
Looking back through a few months worth of MobileMix, I found that each monthly report centers on different aspects of the entire market, depending on developing trends and what is of particular interest in the market at that point.
Over the past few months, I have written a few articles on the subject of smartphone and connected device markets and the poor information and reporting that makes up the majority of what is out there. I can definitely say that Millennial Media is doing the best job I have seen at presenting information that is both comprehensive and factual, and then staying out of the way so they don’t screw it up with unfounded opinions. If you want to keep a running tab of where things stand in the mobile world, at least on the basis of device usage and revenues in the US, then you should be looking at Millennial Media as a primary source.
If the connected device markets or the various head-to-head battles of iOS vs Android are of interest to you, I would highly recommend that you take a look at Millennial Media’s Blog and get at little insight into what they are seeing each month. If you are interested, they are presenting more detailed information in one place with less added fluff than anyone else I have seen.
What do you think of market analysts, connected device market share, or iOS vs Android? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
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TAGS: connected devices, Gartner, Impact of the Verizon iPhone, iOS, iOS market share, iOS vs. Android, iPhone, iPhone market share, Millennial Media, MobileMix, Verizon iPhone, Verizon iPhone sales
