Strategy Analytics, a global analytical company, published on 2 November 2016 a report concerning the use of mobile systems. On a global scale Android has 87,5% market share, iOS 12,1% and the others only 0,3%. What does it tell us? Only one out of ten users has a device with iOS. It may be said that it’s not much, however on a global scale it is still a huge number. Demand for iOS applications is not declining. We may assume that iOS users more often use applications than Android users. Android device manufacturers are rubbing their hands, however, only the biggest count. 88% market share is not directly reflected in the use of applications. Many users of Android use phones for calls, text messages and Internet, namely for those things they used phones with Symbian or similar systems. They buy simple and low-budget models where the main criterion is the price. That’s why those 88% has nothing to do with the earnings of the manufacturers. Apple and its 12% earns much more than all other manufacturers put together. Additionally, the company has huge income from iOS applications.

What about the rest?

What about the remaining systems? There is only 0,3% market share for them. The most popular is Windows Phone. What does it say to us, developers and our clients who are investing in developing the mobile applications? There is no point in investing in the third most popular platform, that is Windows Phone. It’s completely inprofitable. However, in Poland, WP is doing quite well because mobile operators unnoticeably forced their clients to buy phones with this system. Unfortunately, not many of them use applications. The only case where developing Windows Phone application makes sense is a company which purchased phones with WP for all employees. However, in retrospect, it’s a dead end because there will be no support for WP. Such a power structure implies one more situation – hybrid solutions. A huge advantage of such frameworks is one-time coding (plus time for adaptation to different systems) and receiving the application for many systems. However, if we have two dominating systems, is it worth investing in hybrids? Hybrids have also many disadvantages. It remains to be seen how the maket will react. We’ll see if Pixel does not disturb the power of Android devices on the market. Source: www.strategyanalytics.com