A recent study by GSMA’s Mobile Media Metrics has revealed interesting stats for the iPhone, its competitor Symbian, and general application usage. Nokia, despite claiming that it’ll phase out the operating system in a few years, still boasts potential sales of 150 million Symbian devices.
So, with a huge possible market share, does this mean that developers should move over and begin developing for the platform?
Nope. An April comScore report, compiled with GSMA’s research, showed that only 1% of connected application users in the UK were on Symbian. Who was top? Apple’s iOS with a share of 65%. Android followed with 31% and BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and others took the remaining 3% combined.
OK, so the stats only account for those applications that are connecting via a UK carrier, which discounts apps that don’t require online functionality. However, further research into a general market share showed that Apple was still leading the way. 27.6% of people were on the iPhone, 24.7% on Android and 23% on Symbian. The rest (18.1% on BlackBerry and 3.8% on Windows) weren’t threatening.
Looking into the research and trying to gauge a definitive conclusion is difficult. Symbian phones obviously exist in the UK market, but it seems as though no one’s actually connecting online with their apps. Is anyone even buying them?
Obviously developers needn’t abandon Symbian just yet. This doesn’t account for other territories where the iPhone is too dear and Symbian is a more cost-effective development choice. Also, it obviously ignores apps that are without Internet functionality and those that jailbreak their phones.
The report ended with the figures that 5.7 million iPhones exist in the UK, as opposed to 2.7 million Android users and just 119,000 Symbian. You do the math.
Article Via The Guardian
