Android Finally Poised to Overtake iOS in Revenue for Developers

Though Apple often owns the discussion, Google’s Android owns the market, accounting for a whopping 81.5% of market share as of the end of 2014. That’s huge, and yet, iOS has been a more reliable revenue generator than Android since time immemorial.

But all that appears to be changing. For the first time in history, Android generated 45.8 percent of ad revenue in Q1 of 2015 compared to 45.4 percent for iOS. That’s the first time Android has outperformed iOS.

However, take this with a grain of salt. We’re discussing ad revenue, not app store purchases. Only with the inclusion of China’s complex Android marketplace does Android eclipse iOS’ App Store. But what this means is that Google is poised, likely sometime this year, to overtake Apple on actual app store-related revenue.

Bear in mind this is due to a global onslaught of Android devices. iOS devices are – and for the foreseeable future will be – far more potent revenue generators on a per capita basis than their Android counterparts. Apple customers spend more on apps and are demographically more attractive to advertisers. Catering to such a level of exclusivity and caché isn’t really Google’s beat, so they’ll take their lumps and continue pushing Android and Chrome OS all over the world, from cheap devices aimed at lower-income consumers to high-end boutique products.

Accel Partners’ Rich Wong describes the situation:

“Considering the major volume advantage of Android, outside the US in particular, this milestone was inevitable… While Apple deserves enormous credit for some recent market share resurgence (in the US in particular), the longer-term trend hasn’t changed. Developers ultimately have to go where the eyeballs are, and for global mobile eyeballs, Android is way out in front.”

So raise your glasses and celebrate as we vanquish our greatest of foes, those fiends from Cupertino. Bwahaha.

Source: ReCode

Come comment on this article: Android Finally Poised to Overtake iOS in Revenue for Developers