Android has nothing on Apple

Android may be winning the smartphone race, but Apple still reigns over the mobile market

While Android phones continue their march of doom over other smartphones, some surprising new information from comScore was released Tuesday indicating that the Android platform as a whole (including tablets) has nothing on the Apple platform. Taking all of Apple's devices into account, including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch, Apple has a combined platform reach of 37.9 million, which is 59% more than Android’s 23.8 million users. Broken down by market share, Apple takes 16.2% of the market, while Android takes 10.2%.   

An analysis of Apple’s platform found that the number of active iPhones slightly exceeded the number of iPod Touches, and both were roughly twice as high as iPads. Additionally, comScore found that among Apple’s user base, only four million of the total 37.9 million use more than one Apple device.

That, comScore says, indicates that Apple fanboys—the most fervent Apple consumers—only account for a small fraction of the platform’s total user base.

“Though it’s frequently assumed that the Apple user base is composed of dedicated Apple ‘fanboys’, there’s not a tremendous amount of overlapping mobile device access among these users,” said Mark Donovan, comScore SVP of mobile, in a statement. “This of course has significant implications for the developer community as they consider the market potential in developing applications for different mobile platforms.”

Additionally, those fanboys don’t account for the total makeup of iPad owners. Indeed, iPad users are not exclusive to Apple. While Apple is the most heavily represented OEM among iPad owners, its total OEM share of 27.3% is only a touch higher than its share among smartphone subscribers, which is 25.2%. RIM comes in with the second highest number of iPad users at 17.5%, and Android users account for 14.2% of all iPad users.

ComScore’s report also found that the iPad’s largest age demographic is  25-34-year-olds, which is roughly the same for the overall smartphone market, but only the second largest age demographic in the total mobile market. Among all mobile users, comScore found that the 45-54-year-olds account for the largest age demographic with 17.8%, compared to 17.6% for users between the ages of 25 and 34.

While Apple has a significantly higher overall OS reach than Android, Android recently surged to the top of the OS list as the most used smartphone platform. Earlier this month, comScore reported that as of February 2011, Android now accounts for a whopping 33% of the total smartphone market, while RIM, the reigning champion, came in second with 28.9%, followed by Apple with 25.2%. By comparison, only one year ago, Android only accounted for 7.1% of the mobile market, which was less than Microsoft's 15.7% market share.