Survey

Apple.com is the world’s eighth most popular web property

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 26, 2013

Research firm comScore today issued a new survey of the world's top web properties. Apple.com, which comScore ranked the world's eleventh most-popular web site last year, climbed to the #8 slot, reflecting the growing popularity of Apple gadgets in the post-Jobs era. Matter of fact the Apple.com web site recorded a 54 percent increase in the number of hits compared to last year.

That's a significant difference versus a 38 percent average gain for the top 100 measured web properties and the largest increase in the top ten rankings. It should be noted that the web analytics company now finally includes both hits from desktop as well as mobile devices. Go past the fold for the full breakdown...

iPhone and Galaxy owners are not that different

Ed Sutherland ∙ March 22, 2013

While iPhone and Galaxy S3 owners are often viewed as fans of rival teams, the two groups have more in common than Apple or Samsung would care to admit.

A new report finds owners of the two smartphones follow the same usage patterns, while maintaining some distance on hardware and carrier choices.

Based on surveys conducted in January and February, both iPhone and G3 owners follow a trend away from voice calls and emails to texting. Before anyone thinks the two will for a mutual admiration society anytime soon, there are some striking differences, as well...

The iPhone tops JD Power’s satisfaction rankings for ninth consecutive study

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 12, 2018

The iPhone 5, Apple's "disappointing" handset upgrade, has helped the iconic brand top the J.D. Power & Associates user satisfaction rankings for smartphones - and for the ninth consecutive time, too!

The iPhone leads JD's semi-annual report on smartphone customer satisfaction with a score of 855 points, an increase by sixteen points and sixty points better than the second-ranked Nokia with a customer satisfaction score of 795.

It's interesting that the Finnish handset maker rose dramatically by 93 points since the last survey.

Samsung is third while Motorola and HTC round up the top five. The average study score is 796 points on a 1,000-point scale, but Apple files as the only handset maker in the world to rise above the average...

Chart: how US mobile landscape changed in 7 years

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 21, 2013

Research firm comScore today released a comprehensive report on mobile landscape in the United States and elsewhere and one particular chart stands out as another example of how the smartphone market is a duopoly between iOS and Android, with Apple and Samsung increasingly taking industry's profits at the expense of - well, pretty much every other handset maker out there.

Spanning 2005-2012, the chart paints an accurate picture of platform dynamics when it comes to the competitive market for connected mobile devices...

AT&T’s LTE is the fastest, Verizon rules coverage

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 20, 2013

Aren't you sick and tired of top U.S. carriers advertising their 4G LTE service as the nation's fastest and most reliable? This mostly false advertising has been ticking me off for quite some time, especially how T-Mobile promotes its 3G HSPA+ network as 4G. Time for a reality check.

Research firm Rootmetrics yesterday published the results of its survey of U.S. carriers and their fourth-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) networks. Surprisingly or not, AT&T's LTE came on top as the fastest, but rival Verizon grabbed the title of the nation's best LTE coverage. More tidbits right after the break..

As smaller tablets catch on, IDC expects Android to overtake iPad in 2013

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 28, 2017

Research firm IDC today updated its tablet shipments forecast to reflect the growing popularity of low-cost tablets coming from the Android camp.

IDC now predicts that Android tablets will overtake the iPad in terms of volume during the course of 2013.

The firm pegged Apple's share of the global tablet market in 2012 at 51 percent, with Android-driven tablets accounting for 41.5 percent of shipments. The new forecast calls for Android’s share hitting a peak of 48.8 percent in 2013, mostly at the expense of Apple’s iOS predicted to drop down to 46 percent this year.

But why stop there, IDC futurists project tablet shipments nearly four years into the future: in 2017, they expect Android to own 46 percent of the market, with the iPad dropping to a 43.5 percent share. As we know all too well, Apple isn't one to blindly pursue market share, as evident in smartphones where it captures three-quarters of industry profits with barely one-tenth of total handset shipments...

Samsung leads Apple, Lenovo in China smartphone market

Ed Sutherland ∙ March 11, 2013

An interesting report on what smartphone brand is leading in China leaked over the weekend. It's interesting because most market updates are distributed far and wide. Instead, the South Korean news agency Yonhap published a private report indicating that country's Samsung leads Apple and others in the huge mobile marketplace.

According to the Strategy Analytics report obtained by Yonhap, Samsung is the number one brand in China with 17.7 percent of the market during 2012. Intriguingly, Samsung's rise coincides with a plummeting Nokia, which previously held the top spot...

Apple rules the skies: 84% of in-flight Internet use comes from iDevices

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated December 20, 2017

In-flight Wi-Fi provider GoGo yesterday released an interesting infographic based on its real-world data on what devices passengers are using to access its service and what they are doing online. Apple's iPhones and iPads dominated 2012 with a commanding 84 percent share, which sounds about right even if the figure is a bit higher than Apple's other web usage stats.

Android is gaining some ground in the air, so to speak, and in 2012 accounted for sixteen percent of in-flight Internet use, sharply up over just 3.2 percent in 2011. Apple's share in 2011 was 96.8 percent so clearly the company lost some ground to Android.

Five Apples for every Android on Gogo's networks is in stark contrast to other surveys highlighting Android's unit sales lead. Nonetheless, this is a real-world data point, therefore suggesting that either other market share estimates are inherently flawed or that Android-totting passengers are just not as fond of using their devices on a plane as their Apple peers are...

Social apps become the third highest App Store category in terms of revenue

Ed Sutherland ∙ March 8, 2013

Last year saw the rise of social networking apps. While not as dominant as games, apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype helped revenue for the category skyrocket nearly 90 percent, compared to the previous year. Likewise, social networking apps flew to third place on Apple's App Store, behind only games and productivity. That's a notable jump from 2011, when social apps ranked only twelveth.

Revenues for the category on the App Store jumped 87 percent year-over-year in January 2013, with a 30 percent rise in monthly downloads now accounting for fiver percent of total downloads. On Google Play, social networking apps became the number one category, besides games, an app research firm announced Friday...

Apple trailed 2012 tablet shipments in India – that is, if you counted phablets

Ed Sutherland ∙ March 8, 2013

Many observers view India as the next China. There is huge potential waiting for the smart device player able to offer India's mobile consumers a low-cost, prepaid product. In just the latest example of analysts scrambling for data to define the market, new research coming from India suggests an explosion of tablet sales - until you dig into the details.

According to India-based CyberMedia Research, tablet shipments in the world's second largest market rose to 3.11 million units by the end of 2012. Demand was particularly on fire during the last two quarters with around 1 million tablets shipping. Although Apple was reported in third-place behind Samsung and an Indian manufacturer, there's a question of whether researchers counted tablets or a cross category of smartphones nicknamed 'phablets'...

Apple beats Samsung in U.S. smartphone sales

Christian Zibreg ∙ March 6, 2013

Here's some good news: research firm comScore Wednesday announced that during a three-month average ending January 2013 Apple crushed Samsung in United States smartphone sales. Specifically, the iPhone maker was the top US smartphone vendor with a 37.8 percent market share in January 2013, which was up 3.5 percentage points from October 2012. Samsung was second with a notably lower market share of 21.4 percent, a slight 1.9 percentage point increase from October 2012. All told, Apple's 3.5 percentage point gain was Android's loss as we see Google's mobile operating system dropping for the first time. So much about the supposedly "weaker than expected" iPhone 5 demand...

Tablets may consume one-third of mobile traffic in 2013

Ed Sutherland ∙ Updated April 11, 2018

The tablet is taking an increasingly larger bite out of smartphones' share of mobile content. Devices such as the iPad consumed a respectable eighteen percent of mobile traffic in 2012. By the end of this year, tablets are expected to hit nearly one-third of all mobile device traffic, cutting into the dominant position now held by iPhones and similar smartphones.

According to mobile ad network Jumptap, tablets will consume 29 percent of mobile traffic this year, lowering the percentage of content delivered to smartphones to 70 percent, a drop from 2012's 78 percent...