For years, the rise of Android seemed to put almost no dent in the massive proportion of mobile traffic generated by Apple's AAPL +0.11% iPhones. Various theories held that despite their rapid sales, early Android phones weren’t as easy to use as iPhones, didn’t have the latest and greatest apps, or simply were bought and used by people who cared more about making phone calls and texting than using a lot of apps or roaming the mobile Web. As a result, advertisers preferred to direct ads to iPhone users.
Now, for the first time, Google's GOOG +1.17% Android has passed Apple’s iOS in mobile ad traffic, according to a quarterly mobile advertising report released today by mobile ad network Opera Mediaworks. The switch in the first quarter suggests that Android smartphones and tablets such as Samsung’s and HTC'snewer models are getting capable enough to challenge Apple’s iPhones and iPads. “With the Samsung [Galaxy] S4 and other newer Android phones, you’re seeing more parity in users,” says Opera Mediaworks CEO Mahi de Silva. As a result, he says, “the quality of the ads served on Android devices is also more at parity with iOS.”
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