Android is big in tablets. The problem is
that no one has a clue how big it is. While Apple happily reports its rising
unit sales for tablets, Samsung and other major Android distributors keep mum.
Hence, we're largely left in the dark as to just how many Android tablets are
being bought and used.
But developers may help us understand
Android's market penetration.
Android's 'Dark Matter'
By some estimates, Android will claim as
much as 65% of the tablet market in 2014. IDC puts the number a bit lower, but
by any estimate Android is booming.
As in smartphones, Android adoption is on
overdrive due to giving consumers, particularly in developing markets, a
low-cost alternative to Apple's premium pricing. Commenting on Android's rise,
Canalys senior analyst Tim Coulling argues that "Apple’s decline in PC
market share [which includes tablets] is unavoidable when considering its
business model."
Well, maybe.
The problem is counting Android accurately.
Asymco analyst Horace Dediu, commenting on Benedict Evans' analysis of Android
use, highlights the difficulty in getting an accurate read on Android tablet
adoption:
They are not sold through retail chains which normally are sampled in the US and Europe (NPD and GfK respectively.)
They don’t show up in browsing or ad transaction data
Google Play statistics are missing most of the activations since they are not sold as bona fide Google-sanctioned Android.
It should be easy to track Android adoption
by measuring web traffic. Yet Android users lag considerably behind iOS users -
on smartphones and tablets - when it comes to web usage, something I pointed
out a year ago. Dediu posits that Android tablets must be used as glorified
video consoles, and maybe he's right.
But his more interesting suggestion is that
we can track tablet adoption by measuring payments to developers.
A Market Is Big When Developers Get Paid
Commenting on why some popular technologies
like the video CD die quickly, Dediu declares that developer interest ensures a
technology sticks around. And developer interest ultimately comes down to cash:
In contrast, content-based value chains sustain technologies which keep the revenues coming. And we can measure this revenue.
You don’t need to look too hard for that in tablets. Apple states it quite frequently: total payments to developers.
You don’t need to look too hard for that in
tablets. Apple states it quite frequently: total payments to developers.
Not long ago Apple announced that
developers had minted $13 billion selling apps for the iOS platform. Google
doesn't report similar data for Android, in part because it can't due to the
fragmented Android ecosystem, but Business Insider has compiled its own statistics,
which show Android well behind iOS but closing the gap:
Android developers are likely to get paid
even more going forward, as Google has significantly ratcheted up its efforts
to improve monetization for Android developers. Indeed, speaking at Google I/O
earlier this year, Google's VP of Android product management Hugo Barra told
I/O attendees that Google had paid more to Android developers in the 4 months
leading up to I/O than the previous 12 months before that combined.
Closing The Developer Payment Gap
However dim our insight may be into actual
Android shipments and adoption, it's likely to get better as Google improves
developer monetization and (hopefully) starts reporting Android developer
payments, as Apple does. Given the very real possibility that Android tablets
remain a limited-use alternative to the iPad's multi-use playground, one would
expect payments to Android tablet developers to fall far short of what Apple
pays iPad developers.
But if, in fact, we see Android developers
banking equal or greater amounts of money from this allegedly "dark"
adoption, then it will tell us that our understanding of Android usage patterns
is way off. Either way, the answer lies in developers.
summary; Given the difficulty of tracking Android shipments or usage, the best proxy for its market share may come from developer payment data.
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