Comments for The State of the Smartphone: iPhone is Way, Way Ahead

The State of the Smartphone: iPhone is Way, Way Ahead

2009-04-20T14:40:59Z

A new industry report from mobile analytics firm Flurry reveals some unique insights into the smartphone industry as of right now. Because their firm focuses not just on iPhone, but also on Android, RIM Blackberry, and JavaME, they have the ability to see platform-spanning trends, instead of just those tied to Apple. So what can we learn from their deep dive into their company's data? Anything surprising? Actually, what the report confirms is what we've been hearing for some time now: the iPhone is king, smartphones are the new laptops, and iPhone applications can and do make money.

]]> iPhone Has a Commanding Lead

Perhaps what's most surprising about Flurry's report isn't simply how prevalent and popular the iPhone and iPhone applications are today, but how far ahead they are of the nearest competitors. From an application perspective, the iPhone is killing on all fronts: number of developers, number of applications, and number of consumers using these applications.

Keep in mind when viewing these numbers, we're looking at data from Flurry, a snapshot sample computed from 100 applications, 8 million consumers, and 4 platforms (Apple iPhone, Google Android, RIM Blackberry, and JavaME). While these charts can give you insight into the mobile trends, they can't necessarily be extrapolated to the entire mobile smartphone industry. For example, because Flurry only deals with a small number of Blackberry developers, they can't provide any statistically relevant numbers relating to Blackberry apps. But then again, notes Flurry VP of Marketing Peter Farago, "why haven't Blackberry developers signed up for analytics?"

What you can glean from the info they've gathered, however, is that iPhone has a commanding lead over Android and the others right now. Unless Google has some big tricks up their sleeve, catching up with Apple's iPhone is going to be tough.

Smartphones are the New Laptops

Smartphones are the new laptops - we sort of knew this one already, didn't we? Although historically, only 10% of the installed-base used mobile applications on a daily basis, today, that number is changing... and changing fast. Smartphone applications are now heavily used and many are even used daily. Among those used daily, the frequency of use is also high, with some applications being used as much as 20 times per day.

Are smartphones really replacing laptops and are applications really replacing web sites? Maybe "replace" isn't exactly the right word to use, but there is definitely a shift in user behavior occurring right now where people are using their smartphones more than ever.

Yes, iPhone Apps Make Money

According to Flurry, iPhone applications can and do make money. Not all apps make it, of course, but those that do can actually make good money. A strong publisher with two titles a month can expect $10 million to $15 million in sales through the iPhone channel, if the titles are well-marketed, says the report.

But "well-marketed" is the key word here. The iPhone app industry is beginning to resemble the music industry with its "hit-driven" nature. One "hit" gets a developer on the map and gives them the chance to sell more apps. Successful apps often resemble successful songs: you need a good artist, a good producer, a strong distributor, and plenty of promotion.

Boosting Sales in a "Hit-Driven" Economy

It's also worth noting that you can't live forever off one "hit" alone. With iPhone games especially, users tend to get bored rather quickly. Flurry estimates that the average lifetime for a game is about 3 months. Publishers should keep that in mind when planning for their refresh cycles and updates.

But even still, refreshes provided by updates may not be enough. Flurry is seeing a trend that, to be honest, was surprising: only 10% of users are updating their applications after download. That means new features pushed out via an update aren't being seen by a large group of the app's users.

Instead of trying to drive engagement of your current user base through updates, it seems you may be better off going after new users. Cross-promotion of applications - that is, advertising one app within your other app - is very effective. Giving away a free trial can boost sales of your paid application, too.

About Flurry

Flurry is a mobile analytics firm with a "freemium" offering. Right now their core product is free, but in the future some additional optional services including development support and monetization opportunities will be added. Their company offers some unique measurements for developers of multiple smartphone platforms. One such measurement is user path tracking which is a feature much beloved by user experience designers as it lets them see the path a user took to get through a game or application.

Another feature of Flurry's platform is the ability to track dynamic parameters, which are completely custom parameters designated by the developer. Flurry also sets themselves apart from some of their competitors by what they don't do. They don't do advertising and don't want to be an advertising network.

You can check out a demo of Flurry's full service with live reporting data here: flurry.com/demo or you can view this slideshow of Flurry's analytics platform instead.

Comment from Scot on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T17:05:14Z

Because their firm focuses not just on iPhone, but also on Android, RIM Blackberry, and JavaME, they have the ability to see platform-spanning trends, instead of just those tied to Apple.

But they're lacking Symbian, which is the actual leading worldwide Smartphone OS.

Comment from Todd on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T17:27:29Z

iPhone is a great phone!

But that's just it - it will always be *only* in *one* phone. Android will power the long tail of phones, netbooks, TVs, cars, industrial machinery, scientific instruments, millions and millions ( billions? ) of things.

For every one iPhone there are 100,000 industrial machines ( currently running antique Windows CE at outrageous yearly licensing costs ) getting re-compiled to use Android ( which costs $0.00 a year to use, no royalties or licensing fees, and manufactures are not required to release their customize version as Open Source ).

Comment from jmortonscott on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T19:43:59Z

I get bored and delete them often. I really only carry 1 or 2 apps on my phone. I need space for MUSIK!

Comment from Pontus Olin on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T19:55:18Z

What a completely pointless and ridiculous study. It is *beyond* skewed. Two main competitors, Windows Mobile & Symbian aren't even included! The Windows Mobile developer community, for instance, is extremely active and boasts many thousands of developers.

Sorry for being so harsh, but I would expect a high school student to come up with a less biased study than this. The only conclusion that can be drawn from this is that iPhone developers like Flurry, nothing else.

Comment from Spade on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T20:42:46Z

@ Todd

You *do* know that the iPod touch uses almost the exact same OS as the iPhone, right? So your statement "it will always be *only* in *one* phone" is a bit off. Plus, we don't know what hardware Apple is cooking up next - from what we do know, the 3.0 OS will allow a lot of third-party hardware to function from the dock connector.

Additionally, will all those "industrial machines [...] getting re-compiled to use Android" be able to download and install apps written for the Android phone platform? Will they even *want* to have that ability? What matters here is platform consistency, and I don't see that happening on your industrial machines.

So, your comparison here is fundamentally flawed.

@ Pontius Olin

It's entirely possible WinMo would get a decent chunk of the developer pie chart. But how about applications? Customers? From what I understand, only a subset of WinMo phones can actually make use of the advanced platform capabilities that truly matter in the smartphone arena.

Apple's huge advantage is that they have a compatible software & hardware platform which extends beyond just the iPhone to the iPod touch as well. With such an enormous userbase on such a consistent and widespread platform, *any* competitor's going to have difficulty cracking those numbers.

What matters in this race is not total number of phones running some variation of some OS, but the total number of devices which provide a consistent platform for one app to have enormous, widespread potential for adoption.

Comment from neon on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T20:57:23Z

The trying to drive engagement of your current user base through updates, it seems you may be better off going after new users.soo??

Comment from Sarah Perez on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T21:03:13Z

@Pontius Olin

I noted that:

"Keep in mind when viewing these numbers, we're looking at data from Flurry, a snapshot sample computed from 100 applications, 8 million consumers, and 4 platforms (Apple iPhone, Google Android, RIM Blackberry, and JavaME). While these charts can give you insight into the mobile trends, they can't necessarily be extrapolated to the entire mobile smartphone industry."

Can we learn nothing from this snapshot, though?

Comment from Mona on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T21:16:38Z

Sarah, you asked if we can learn anything and this study clearly shows 1. consumers are looking for the complete user experience - be gone, hunting and pecking and 2. there are way too many apps for the iPhone - 90% are crap so people just DL the free ones LOL.

And to the Symbian/WinMo people: even if they were included, look at the big picture. 1. they've been around FOREVER yet allowed Apple to gain a huge market share in such a short period of time. and 2. they must innovate and revolutionize or will stay irrelevant.

Comment from Leo Gaggl on 2009-04-20

2009-04-20T23:26:55Z

I generally enjoy reading RWW - but on this article I have to completely agree with Pontus Olin above.

Starting with the sensationalist title "The State of the Smartphone" and ignoring a large part of the industry is at best misleading. It's more a reprinted press release for some 'mobile analytics' firm interested in their own sales rather than a serious shapshot of anything.

Comment from Peter Farago on 2009-04-20

2009-04-21T03:30:06Z

@Leo Thanks for your comment. I can see how the data seems skewed. We simply packaged up our findings and shared them. Our service is free, so we're not making any revenue for sharing our findings. Regarding not yet supporting Windows Mobile (and Symbian as another commenter posted), we chose to hold off due to the lack of demand from the developer community. We spoke with dozens of developers before we started building our service, and with many more since. To us, it seemed that the four platforms we covered matched what our customers wanted. We'd be happy to support other platforms, and it's relatively easy for us to do, since the back end is built in a way that knocking out additional SDK's for those is not a major issue. So we're happy to do so, but just waiting for the right amount of demand (based on our POV of the market).

Peter Farago
VP Marketing
Flurry

Comment from Peter Farago on 2009-04-20

2009-04-21T03:56:01Z

@ Pontius

Completely agree that this is not a randomly selected, statistically significant sample. However, there are signficant trends that can be extrapolated.

Adding to Spade's (another commenter) point, WinMo has been out for a while. Flurry beleives that our data indicates the pulse of where the development community is spending its time. They are putting a significant amount of resources toward the iPhone vs. other platforms. We get very, very few requests to support WinMo. We do get more for Symbian, but primarily from Europe (which makes sense), but not quite as much as we would have once expected.

Another issue with WinMo, Symbian, JavaME and Blackberry is that distribution of those applications primarily goes through the carrier channel. So if a developer wants to add an analytics to an existing apps, she would have to go through the whole carrier submission and approval process all over again. Anyone who has dealt with carriers directly (i have my scars) knows this is challenging. Updating apps for iPhone and Android is very easy, relatively speaking. This could account for the proportions of support for iPhone and Android as well.

Comment from Soveci on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T07:35:44Z

thanks...

Comment from Todd on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T11:12:51Z

@Spade

iPhone OS is closed, never, ever to be released Open Source. It will only run on Apple hardware and nothing else. Apple just makes three kinds of devices, awesome ones, but they have no intention of expanding to say metal stamping machines that make aluminum hinges for Hyundai air conditioners. But the company that does make the metal stamping machine is currently paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to Microsoft for their Windows CE license. They can switch to Android for $0.00.

As to my "flawed" premise, I'll gloss over your lack of understanding of Android and just let you know that the App store is a simple feature of the Android operating system, that doesn't need to be used and can be removed. Android is completely customizable.

Rather than rely on my opinion, I recommend you download Android and check it out for yourself:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/1.1_r1/index.html

...something you cannot do with the iPhone OS!

Comment from RCO on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T11:57:51Z

what about the impact coming from the PALM PRE whose new OS appears to be receiving very favorable reviews from the developer community. I have seen several articles discussing how easy it is to develop APPs for PALM as well as many great reviews about the phone. Apple is great but PALM should be included in the study, too.
thanks,

Comment from Crash on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T13:35:19Z

This data is flawed on so many levels and clearly biased to showcase the iPhone; as others have already said, Symbian and WinMo stats are missing, which is a rather big issue if we're to compare smartphone platforms. Also, these are likely US-only numbers; sorry to break it to you, but the US isn't the world, and more so in the mobile business.

I'm disappointed in the person who wrote this article, were you simply that blind?

Comment from Synthmeister on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T16:02:33Z

@Todd

Not sure what you're talking about. Any one can download the developer SDK for iPhone, for free.

Also RIM is closed, and MS Mobile will also never be open-sourced. That may or may not have anything to do with their success. Right now Apple and RIM are the two most profitable players in the mobile space and they are "closed." MS barely made $250 million for the whole of last year, despite having sold more licenses. Both Nokia and Sony-Ericsson had HUGE declines in their sales over the last year. Google is still just a blip on the radar and Pre is still vapor.

Meanwhile, Apple racked up over $4 billion in iPhone related revenues last year after LESS than 2 years on the market. The App store alone is on pace to reach $1 billion in revenue by next year. Google, Nokia and MS can only fantasize about those kind of numbers.

And yes this article has some major flaws.

Comment from Jason on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T20:40:04Z

Sarah, I just don't believe this study truly represents the user base out there. Granted, I'm a BlackBerry user so I may be a bit biased. In my experience, BlackBerry developers aren't as concerned with sharing analytics. Apps are often born out of a need within the community, and not just because they could make an app that does X. In addition, there has never been just one source or store for BB apps as there is on the iPhone. That's not even mentioning the fact that the BB devices have never been a cool trend on the level that the iPhone has, the amount of hype around that thing amazes even me. I'm not saying I'll never own one, but I haven't been convinced yet by using friend's iPhones.

Comment from Richard Dib on 2009-04-21

2009-04-21T20:59:31Z

> iPhone is a great phone!

> But that's just it - it will always be *only* in *one* phone. Android will power
> the long tail of phones, netbooks, TVs, cars, industrial machinery, scientific
> instruments, millions and millions ( billions? ) of things.

Who says the iPhone software is not going to power other appliances???

Remember, there is the iPod Touch, and it is not a phone.

As Apple's iPhone OS matures, you will see how it becomes a new computing platform, for portable computing. This includes Scientific instruments (software plus hardware attached to an iPod Touch), etc. etc. Apple just opened the hardware side of things so that hardware attached to an iPod Touch can be controlled by software on the iPod. That opens the iPod Touch to everything you mention and more.

Therefore, your assumption is wrong, it is not just a phone ... it is a platform.

Comment from christian on 2009-04-22

2009-04-22T08:28:37Z

>But the company that does make the metal stamping machine is >currently paying hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to >Microsoft for their Windows CE license. They can switch to >Android for $0.00.

Why would anybody now suddenly switch to android in the embedded industry from windows ce. Linux distributions and bsd/other unix + rtoses have been around for a really long time and the most automation producers have already made the leap that are going to. Market shares in embeded arent going to change that much anymore (only some).

Comment from Matt Radford on 2009-04-22

2009-04-22T08:34:34Z

There isn’t a problem with the study, it’s the tone of the article – it’s far, far from a “state of the smartphone” analysis; it’s much more a “state of developer interest in smartphones”. Take it in that way, and you have a more usable study.

Peter Farago commented, “...our data indicates the pulse of where the development community is spending its time. They are putting a significant amount of resources toward the iPhone vs. other platforms.” With the large caveat that Symbian, WinMo and Android developers are excluded, this is the case. The ease of development, targeted to a single platform, is drawing in devs to the iPhone who have never coded for mobile before. And their route-to-market is (the App Store) is currently second-to-none.

However, the omission of Symbian is significant. iPhone OS has sold 30m units. When the Ovi Store launches on Nokia later this year, there will be an estimated 400m units to target (both S40 and S60) – as the Store will become visible on phones that are already in circulation. Although Nokia does not have great mindshare or marketshare in the US, it is the dominant provider for most of the world’s mobile devices, and the potential for sales will be huge.

Comment from Free iPhone on 2009-04-22

2009-04-22T18:12:05Z

So why has the iPhone become so popular in such a short time? Surely it is alot to do with hanging off the back of the iPod and some great marketing. Yes the iPhone is a hugely powerful platform (it is, after all, now an OS..), but I can guarantee you that 90% of iPhone owners bought theirs just because it is a 'cool' gadget to own and mainly use it as a phone/ipod with perhaps a few popular apps.
The people buying smartphones do so for business reasons - not the show off reasons.

Comment from Sarah Perez on 2009-04-22

2009-04-22T18:38:49Z

@Matt - you nailed it - my title is off. But I still think the data is relevant and interesting.

Comment from peter_farago on 2009-04-22

2009-04-22T22:14:30Z

@Crash. Addressed why Symbian and WinMo absent in earlier comment (not enough interest from developer community with whom we spoke). This data is world-wide, including usage data from over 10 countries.

Peter Farago
VP Marketing
www.flurry.com
Follow us:
http://blog.flurry.com
http://twitter.com/FlurryMobile

Comment from Michael on 2009-04-26

2009-04-27T05:20:30Z

This article needs to be re-written, this is hardly news and you could do so much better.

You have agreed the title should be changed. That is a first good start. With BlackBerry continuing to outsell iPhone by a large margin, the iPhone is hardly way ahead.
Can you change that please? It's very misleading.

Also the article states: "While these charts can give you insight into the mobile trends, they can't necessarily be extrapolated to the entire mobile smartphone industry. For example, because Flurry only deals with a small number of Blackberry developers, they can't provide any statistically relevant numbers relating to Blackberry apps"

And

So we have left out BlackBerry, Symbian, WinMo, Palm.

I wonder if any of the 100 applications were available for the BlackBerry?

Now about the data, this isnt data about the actual number of developers for a particular platform, but isnt it data about the actual number of developers using Flurry's service for these platforms?

BTW do they even realize the BlackBerry supports Java ME? Have they broken it down to see what device any of those JavaME developers are writing software for?

It seems Flurry has a problem with presenting and misrepresenting their data and this could be a warning to anyone considering using their service.

Comment from neon on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T13:07:40Z

They are putting a significant amount of resources toward the iPhone vs. other platforms.” With the large caveat that Symbian, WinMo and Android developers are excluded, this is the case.

Comment from Oyun on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T15:24:05Z

This article needs to be re-written, this is hardly news and you could do so much better.

Comment from neon tabela on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T19:49:59Z

The is a first good start. With BlackBerry continuing to outsell iPhone by a large margin, the iPhone is hardly way ahead....

Comment from kat on 2009-04-27

2009-04-27T22:52:44Z

this is bs. i just bought an iphone and used it for three days. it sucks. i went back and gladly paid the restock fee to trade it for a bberry curve.
the curve lets you treat memory like a folder and you can manipulate files and folders like any external memory drive. iphone does not allow you to get into the 8 or 16 gigs, no way. what little you can do regarding deleting files is through a pain in the a-hole procedure requiring itunes to handle it.
all synching is through the commercial heavy itunes.
i don't like being shackled to itunes, period.

if you want a (another? how many music devices do you need for x sake? ) home entertainment system and a phone, the iphone is it. my ipod is more than enough.

for a smartphone, pda, the blackberry is it. no question about it.
if you

Comment from qiaoan on 2009-04-28

2009-04-28T20:16:30Z

i'm totally addicted to my iphone, it has pretty much become my laptop. but i do worry a bit because i store a lot of personal and sensitive information like my credit card info when i shop online on my phone and what happens god forbid, if i lose my phone. i went to this site, and it has a lot of pretty decent info on mobile security and good tips on preventative measures to keeping your info safe.

Comment from SimpleLeap Software on 2009-05-05

2009-05-05T15:11:24Z

One of the few things I do agree with is that marketing is KEY with an iPhone app.

There is simply no way you can get an app noticed with the thousands of other without marketing. It doesn't even matter if the application is quality (even though if it's not, the word will spread quickly) people just need to know about it. I enjoyed the comparison to the music industry because I have repeatedly said the same thing.

Comment from cet on 2009-06-22

2009-06-22T19:49:48Z

hadi gari

Comment from jouer au casino en ligne on 2009-07-06

2009-07-06T10:56:11Z

i'm totally addicted to my iphone

Comment from James on 2009-07-14

2009-07-14T13:17:26Z

Windows Mobile statistics are completely omitted. No matter how small (or big) it MUST to be displayed in the comparisons, so that developers in the WinMobile camp can make an informed choice and start to join the iPhone revolution.

Comment from ed hardy on 2009-09-09

2009-09-09T09:31:25Z

What you can glean from the info they've gathered, however, is that iPhone has a commanding lead over Android and the others right now.

Comment from sex on 2009-09-12

2009-09-12T13:21:11Z

Comment from peynir on 2009-09-27

2009-09-27T11:45:58Z

WOW, amazing!, thank you so, SO much... the most usefull extension I've installed in a good while ^^

Comment from EmmaM on 2009-09-27

2009-09-27T12:39:48Z

Thanks for posting such an informative article. $10 million per month is amazing turnover, it is interesting to see that the iPhone is as popular as ever. Great read once again.

Comment from EmmaM on 2009-09-27

2009-09-27T12:54:33Z

I have just read the full article on Flurry and basically it says that a puzzle game turnedover $750k in a week. But there is many applications (as much as 65,000) so it is very competitive, in addtion cross selling is not in the terms and conditions of Apple (read on another blog) thus, if this is the marketing strategy of companies going foward then this surely they will be banned? I personally think that the struggle lies in trying to beat the likes on miniclip, EA and other games. We have also started to see media companies such as Character Arcade offer iphone apps ... in my opinion the market is becoming harder and more competitive.