Android Apps More Popular Than iOS Apps, ABI Research Study Finds

On Monday, marketing firm ABI Research released a study which showed that Android app downloads have overtaken those of iOS. Of all mobile apps downloaded in the second quarter of 2011, 44 percent were Android while only 31 percent were iOS.

In a press release, an ABI research associate chalked this up to to the fact that Android platform is open, allowing any developer to create and distribute any app:

Being a free platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third party multi-platform and mobile operator app stores. These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market.

In addition, Android phones are finding their way into the hands of more and more users, therefore it's not a huge surprise that more Android apps are being downloaded. According to comScore's August report on mobile market share, almost 44 percent of smartphone owners have Android phones while 27 percent have iPhones. These numbers closely resemble ABI's percentages for Android and iOS app market share.

The ABI study nods to the disparity between the number of Android and iOS supporting handsets. According to their report, iPhone shipments decreased by 6 percent in the second quarter, while Android shipments increased 16 percent. Apple expects next quarter's iPhone sales to be much higher and has speculated that the drop in iPhone shipments was probably partly due to consumers holding off on buying new phone until the iPhone 4S came out.

While fewer people have iPhones, they download more apps each than Android users do. In fact, Apple is beating Android 2-to-1 in terms of app downloads per user. The ABI report attributes this to, "Apple's superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience."

Business Insider writes that this distinction is important for Apple because it means developers will continue working with them even though Android has more users, "For now, developers are still happier with iOS despite the smaller user base and smaller number of total downloads."

Even though it's easier for developers to get apps into the Android Market, at least some of them prefer Apple's strict vetting process that keeps bad apps out. In an interview with The Huffington Post, one developer said that the quality of apps on the Android Market was "pathetically low." Which may be why the ABI report found that the number of app downloads per iOS user was twice as high as that of Android users.

While Android may be dominating the smartphone market in terms of units sold and apps downloaded, Apple is the clear winner when it comes to tablets. According to Mashable, Apple's tablet market share as of April 2011 was around 83 percent. While some report that sales of Android tablets have started to catch up with Apple's iPad sales, PC World thinks Android's tablet numbers are being inflated by "shaky math" and clever semantics. While Apple usually reports tablet figures in terms of how many have been sold, Android often talks in terms of how many are shipped. It sounds impressive to say 250,000 tablets have been shipped, but not if 95 percent of them are sitting in a warehouse somewhere unable to be sold.

Comments

[theveggiedude]

03:04 AM on 10/27/2011

Developers are still making better money on iOS than on Android.

The study says "Android’s app downloads per user still lag behind Apple’s by 2-to-1" and "Apple’s superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience."

Ah, the devil's in the details...

[NerdyStudent]

01:29 AM on 10/27/2011

I'm part of that "less than 10%" elite crew that develops/uses Mango.

[jflorish]

06:32 PM on 10/26/2011

This is probably because android needs alot of security apps on it ......

[waldopepper]

04:40 PM on 10/26/2011

My dads penis is bigger than your dads penis.

[sensimilla]

04:57 PM on 10/26/2011

my dad is buried deeper than your dad!

[scunn07]

12:25 PM on 10/26/2011

There has been a lot of buzz in the recent weeks over the surging Android market and it has now surpassed its biggest competitor in the space. This new data from ABI goes to show that now is the time for mobile app marketers to look at the opportunity that an Android app presents. My company, Fiksu, recently published new data that shows on average, Android app users are two times more loyal than iOS app users. This was discovered by analyzing more than 4 billion app actions recorded through our Fiksu for Mobile apps platform. I invite you to check out our full findings here: http://www.fiksu.com/blog/mobile-marketers-take-note-new-data-reveals-android-app-users-are-2x-more-loyal-ios-app-users

Viki Zabala
Director of Marketing
Fiksu, Inc. (www.fiksu.com)

[helioszephyr]

09:42 PM on 10/26/2011

didn't know these threads were commercial advert spaces.

[MIKEinNYC]

11:24 AM on 10/26/2011

What teh wireless insutry really needs is a mandate that all phones must work on all systems. That will foster competition because the carriers will know that we can always easily take our business AND OUR PHONES to another carrier.

It's ridiculous that our cell phones are set up only to work with a single carrier. Imagine that your home appliances all had different power plugs and required different unique power supplies or that every make of car required its own unique fuel. Same thing!

[PhillyKing]

10:53 AM on 10/26/2011

"The ABI report attributes this to, "Apple's superior monetization policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience."... yup that's it... couldn't possibly be the fact that Android users generally dont 'need' an app for EVERYTHING as opposed to ios users... nah couldn't be that...

[mairs]

03:30 PM on 10/26/2011

I sort of got wary of downloading apps on my Droid because some of them would crash my phone. I had an iPhone and for awhile had them both at the same time. I felt more secure about downloading iPhone apps. But that was just my own experience. Maybe I'm just a sissy.

[PhillyKing]

11:53 AM on 10/31/2011

u r being a sissy... but being a careful sissy aint a bad thing... i work in IT and i wish more of my end users would be more wary about what they download :-)

[Tazirai]

09:41 PM on 10/26/2011

I really DONT need apps to live. I can list all my apps that I use daily.
Netflix
Huffpo
Endomondo
pdanet
weatherchannel
googlesky
youtube
JWWDIC (japanese ime) That's it.
Apps are overated in terms of who has the most, It's about what use YOU personally have for them.

[PhillyKing]

11:54 AM on 10/31/2011

cosigned... i have yet to see someone install 450K apps to their device

[valar84]

10:18 AM on 10/26/2011

The comment regarding how the numbers indicating that Android tablets are catching up must be ignored because they are "units shipped" and not "units sold" is ridiculous.

They may have had a point three or six months back, when Android tablets were just starting to come out. But if it was true that retailers weren't able to sell them and that they just ended up being warehoused, shipments would be dwindling to a stop, not increasing quarter to quarter. Retailers aren't going to order even more stock if they are unable to sell the stock they actually have, and producers aren't going to produce tablets if no retailer wants to buy them. You know, like Apple did for the iPad (25% cut in Q4).

Look what happened to the Touchpad, Best Buy was unable to sell its initial stock and publicly told HP to stop shipping new units and to take back unsold stocks.

Anecdotically, I bought a Thrive recently, and looking around, there were as many unsold iPads as unsold Android tablets in the store (units were visible behind glass doors). At the same time, an older Asian man also bought a Thrive and a woman bought an eeePad. But the only people looking at iPads were teens without the means to buy them. Granted, most who want iPads probably already have them, but still.

[JRElliott]

10:04 AM on 10/26/2011

(Full disclosure: I make my living off companies who rely on Windows on the desktop and in the back office, to a lesser extent, Linux in the back office. I own and use both an Android device and an iOS device.)

It's all in the expectations.

When I hold my Apple-sourced device, I expect the fine fit and finish that Apple is famous for. I expect the design-conscious behavior and attention to detail that I associate with the brand. Few of the third-part apps I use rise to that level so I'm caught in a quest for the golden fleece.

If Android is a copy of iPhone (as Jobs claims), it's a poor copy. As such, I have lower expectations when I hold it in my hand. The apps I use on Android are even worse than the iOS apps but I tolerate them because their quality is more consistent with their milieu.

When I eat at the little greasy spoon diner down the hill, I don't expect haute cuisine so it has to be really bad to disappoint me. When I dine at Maison d'Pomme, it has to be a peak experience, even if I order Hamburger et frites françaises.

[facepalmpatriot]

09:13 AM on 10/26/2011

While I'm a self confessed hater of Apple, I'm a HUGE fan of developers on any platform. It's not surprising to see more app downloads taking place for Android: there are vastly more Android phones in use than iPhones. Not news. I think it's funny they took a direct quote from a developer from the HuffPo, which is in bed with Apple as we all know (I still love you, HuffPo). Of course, he makes a B.S. comment about Android's app quality, which is completely idiotic. This is a DEVELOPER thing, not an Android vs. Apple thing. Regardless of who currently has the best phone on the market (Nexus Prime), both platforms have amazing and completely terrible apps.

Oh, and the biggest piece of malware on your phone? It's that app you check every 5 minutes and plug your entire life into called "Facebook". Wake up, people.

[MIKEinNYC]

08:58 AM on 10/26/2011

Are we going to start this again, two different platforms with incompatibility? Beta v. VHS; Apple v. Microsoft; HD v. BluRay; CDMA v. GSM.

All of these phones pretty much do the same things. Some even make calls. How about all phones work on all systems and carriers and use the same apps? Or is that too sensible?

[gtg007w]

09:09 AM on 10/26/2011

Totally agree with you - everything should be platform independent. I was appreciative when softwares were starting to be released that could run on both Windows and Mac. No reason why it it should be for one particular base - such as games specifically for XBox 360 vs PS3.

You'd think we'll learn from history. I don't know why developers won't do so either - higher potential for adoption if available across all platforms.

[jeffhintx]

09:34 AM on 10/26/2011

AVID started on the Mac but ported to Windows when Uncle Steve decided to get stubborn on the hardware end. So now AVID is cross platform. Steve finally relented but he was still more supportive of his own offering, Final Cut.
AVID works great again on both Win and Mac but I know quite a few AVID users on Win who will never go back now that they got burned. I'm one of them.

[jeffhintx]

09:42 AM on 10/26/2011

Sony has tried the vendetta approach with BetaMax, MicroMD, Hi-8/Digit­al8, MiniDisc and where did it get them? Had they simply been a little friendlier to the market they would have won and so would the user.
BetaMax was superior quality but the customer experience sucked, Digital8 would have been a more robust tape format than MiniDV but Sony prevented other mfrs from licensing it on their pro and broadcast cameras, it goes on and on ad nauseum.

The much celebrated and now deceased Uncle S.teve wants to brick over a billion Android powered devices because of a vendetta? Sure, that's gonna go over real well...NOT.

I applaud your common sense Mike.

[Jason Walson]

08:36 AM on 10/26/2011

As a developer I have stopped making apps for Android. People don't pay for anything there. Nobody is making money with the Android Platform except google. I predict there will be a huge push from developers to stop making apps for this platform unless google can start attracting buyers such as IOS has. I can no longer spend 6 months of work on building app to make less than $2.

[jeffhintx]

09:29 AM on 10/26/2011

Nonsense, I've spent well over a $150 on Android apps.
Maybe it's the KIND of apps you're developing? Since you didn't hint at what they were, no one has a clue. Perhaps you could enlighten us?
But I'll give you a head start!
I need an app which will approximate a "time code slate" for my camera work.
(iOS has one already)
It has to be able to read and generate video time code and display it on a slate with the proper scene and take numbers and it has to generate an audible CLICK when you clap it.
There's one Android app out there which sells for a couple of dollars but it doesn't generate actual time code out the earphone jack so it's not very useful for pro buyers.
However I would gladly pay twenty dollars or more if you could develop one which does.

[theveggiedude]

03:08 AM on 10/27/2011

It's a well known fact, developers do not make money on Android, but they do on iOS. And part of the reason is that iOS is still much larger than Android.

The bigger reason is that Apple has a better eco-system.

[LightShadow62]

04:57 PM on 10/26/2011

If you couldn't get people to pay for your apps then you must be making some pretty crappy apps.

[glockman]

08:15 AM on 10/26/2011

Can someone explain these constant (and silly) iPhone vs. Android comparisons? So each has a gazillion apps to choose from, big deal.

I have an Android phone, and an iPod touch (whose app market pretty much mirrors the iPhone), and from what I've observed, most of the apps I use are found in both markets for both platforms.

As for having all those gazillion apps, who needs a gazillion junky apps that will never be used? I have a core about 50 apps that I use often. The rest are just fluf that serve no real purpose.

[ChicagoBob]

02:51 AM on 10/26/2011

Jobs often got there first, and sometimes better. Unfortunately he seldom stayed better.

[planetjeffy]

02:21 AM on 10/26/2011

I've owned 2 Android phones - one had 100 apps and the newer one about 60. I've only paid for 3 apps. 2 were horrible and I uninstalled them - and the other, MLB - I pay $20 a year for. There is a good free app for almost every need. No need to pay for Android apps.