14 DAY TRIAL // AdMob’s April Mobile Metrics report analyzed the number of unique Android and iPhone devices in its network and found that there were twice as many iPhone OS devices in use as Android devices. The mobile advertising company acquired by Google for $750 million last year found that, in the US, there were 10.7 million iPhones and 8.7 million Android devices. Adding the iPod touch, also powered by the iPhone OS, there are 2 to 1 iPhone OS devices compared with Android ones.
“The iPhone and Android ecosystems are growing rapidly, with Gartner estimating the two platforms combined to sell 25% of smartphones worldwide in Q1,” AdMob begins. “At their developer conference last week, Google stated they are activating 100,000 Android devices a day. Apple has sold an amazing 85 million iPhones and iPod touches over the past three years.”
However, AdMob acknowledges that, “Devices shipped can be very different from the installed user base on a platform.” The perfect example is Apple, AdMob says. Since Cupertino doesn’t disclose information such as how many of the 85 million iPhone OS units are being used, how many are iPhones and how many are iPod touches, or even the distribution of the devices geographically, it is difficult to quantify the number of devices that are actually being used, AdMob says.
“In the April Mobile Metrics report we take a look at unique Android and iPhone devices in our network,” the advertising company goes on. “The numbers represent the unique devices that requested at least one ad from the AdMob network in April 2010. Please note these are not market estimates, rather data from our network that could be used to inform relative comparisons between the platforms,” the report (available in PDF format here) reads.
A chart is provided to show unique Android and iPhone devices for the US and worldwide. The States have 10.7 million iPhone devices. Android devices are about 8.7 million. Internationally, things are a bit different, although the scales are still tipped in Apple’s favor. According to AdMob, “The iPhone platform has significantly more unique devices than Android in the AdMob network,” globally speaking. “The ratio of iPhone OS devices to Android devices was 3.5 to 1. The report breaks out the geographic distribution of the devices in more detail; 75% of Android devices are in the North America, compared to 49% of iPhone OS devices,” AdMob says.
The Google-owned advertising firm notes that these numbers reflect the adoption of its products (clicks on ads) and business operations, since they are gathered from the AdMob network only. “We don’t know what percentage of the total universe of iPhone and Android devices AdMob reaches,” AdMob admits. “However we believe the data is useful on a relative basis given the large sample size of devices in our network,” it concludes.