Android vs. IOS: Techweek & Iris Mobile Place Bets at SXSW

12 March, 2012

Iris Mobile and Techweek partner to conduct a live experiment to predict the future of mobile. Have you ever wondered what the breakdown of devices would be if we did a live test with early mobile adopters? How do current usage statistics stack up? What future predictions can we make by extrapolating this data – read on to find out.

THE EXPERIMENT
On March 12, 2012, Iris Mobile launched a campaign featuring an exclusive event at SXSW. All attendees were opted into a campaign list to obtain VIP access to the Techweek party at SXSW. Each handset was pushed an image based Rich Media Message with the location and details about the event. Using advance device detection, we were able to obtain detailed analytics regarding the 400 devices which participated in the campaign.

THE RESULTS
Surprisingly there was an overwhelming winner. IOS wins with 66.5% of market share at SXSW 2012. The results were the following:

  • IOS – 66.5%
  • Android – 13.3%
  • Other – 13.3%
  • Blackberry – 5.4%
  • Feature Phones – 1.5%

How does this compare to the current general public? The current mobile OS breakdown in the United States is the following (Nielson, February 2012):

  • Feature Phones – 50.3%
  • Android – 23.9%
  • IOS – 15.9%
  • Blackberry – 5.9%
  • Other – 4.0%

 

OUR MOBILE PREDICTIONS
As expected, there is currently a very wide range between early adopters in the industry and general usage trends. That being said, as smart phone usage rates continue to grow, we can project based on these results that IOS trends may increase to capture more market share as the devices become more prevalent across carriers. This trend has already started to emerge in March as iPhone sales for the first time matched Android device sales in the last year (Nielson March 2012). As smartphone market penetration continues to grow, we do need to be aware of the mobile landscape and understand the mobile demographics of our users to fully realize the benefits of mobile marketing. Based on industry data, we are projecting the following trends to define the future of mobile:

  • Smart phone usage will continue to grow, but as mobile marketers, we will need to understand how our customers use their devices. Not all users will have the technical proficiency on these devices and we need to simplify our mobile strategies to facilitate the user experience.
  • The mobile market will continue to be fragmented, but eventually as users become more sophisticated and technology becomes more accessible, there will be a winner in the mobile space. Only when this happens can simply deliver a single experience for mobile users. Until we reach this optimal state, as marketers, we must make smart mobile choices and ensure we target all major customer groups by understanding our user demographics. This can be done by using platform agnostic mobile strategies like mobile web and messaging tactics.
  • We are about to get a lot smarter when targeting our mobile audience. Using push and pull mobile strategies and the ability to identify specific handsets, we can further target each subgroup with specific calls to action. For instance, if we know 65% of our target group are iOS users, then we can specifically direct these users to this richer experience by pushing mobile calls to action to a catered experience such as an iPhone application.

It’s no longer enough to simply develop a mobile experience and hope that the results will follow. As with any other marketing strategy, it is important to understand the future trends, but not forget the current consumer behaviors before implementing a strategic marketing decision. Some basic advice that we can provide is to understand the types of handsets your customers are using with device detection using messaging before investing in any specific mobile strategy. Remember, learn from the pros, but cater your mobile strategies to your audience to get the best results.