According to a new report compiled by Time, the ongoing Android vs iOS battle has been analysed to understand where exactly each platform is thriving and where the other is struggling, and it appears Android is leading the smartphone marketshare, whilst iOS is dominating the business world.
Google’s Android platform held over half the U.S. smartphone market in January at 51.2% to 43.5% of that held by iOS, due mostly to the hugely successful Samsung Galaxy devices and HTC handsets, opposed to Apple’s single iPhone line.
Taking a look at the App Stores for the two platforms and Android vs iOS is a very similar picture, with an almost even split. Both platforms boast over 800,000 apps.
But of those, only 40% of all Apps downloaded were done on iOS, with Android taking the majority, meaning Android users tend to download more Apps than those on iOS – does that perhaps give an indication of the quality? But of those 40%, iOS boasts over 74% of the download revenue generated by App downloads, so despite less downloads, iOS makes more money.
Flip over to the business world and the Android vs iOS story is a lot more clear cut, with iOS shown as the clear leader and it’s not difficult to understand why Android is used less with the recent report of increasing malware detections on the platform.
So, Android vs iOS?
Well that’s the question. It really depends on what you are looking for. Android really has no place in the Enterprise environment, it just hasn’t got the security mechanisms in place to confidently store business information without the threat of malware, but it seems Android dominates the general consumer market for the very reasons of it being so customisable, easy to use, and adoptable.
There doesn’t appear to be one winner, just one platform being good at something the other isn’t, and that’s the beauty of the Android vs iOS battle – you really need both to really benefit from from each other.