Demographics and Market Share Across Platforms

You may have heard that last week, Instagram, one of the best selling apps for iPhone had released an Android version. The 18 month old app is one of the App Store's best seller and had remained one of the last apps to maintain an iPhone only exclusivity. All of that changed last Wednesday when the app was downloaded by one million users in the first 24 hours of its release. What is more surprising is the accusations of classism of some iPhone users who decried that this new accessibility would now flood the app with content that they deemed less than desirable. By no means is this the first time that Apple users (sometimes called fanboys) have been accused of being elitist sheep, there is some research surrounding the iPhone vs. Android markets. To share a few points from a recent Buzzfeed article (Aug, 2011 article from Hunch.com):

• Market Share: Android (39%), iPhone (28%)
• Droid: 17% more likely to live in suburbs, 86% more likely to live in the country
• Droid: 80% more likely to only have a high school diploma
• iPhone: 37% more likely to have a graduate degree
• iPhone: 50% more likely to be early adopters of technology
• Droid users: 31% more likely to be late adopters
• Droid users: 57% more likely to prefer an ugly device that's full featured
• iPhone users: 122% more likely to prefer a sleek device that does just a few things

While these statistics are very biased and provide limited insights, it gives a glimpse into how various companies may market their services to various demographics. Last week, comScore released its market share figures for Feb-April of this year which indicated that Android Google's platform (47%) was almost double that of Apple's iOS (29%). As Droid's market share continues to expand, mobile phone manufacturers will have more opportunity to offer the platform on more devices. Instagram, which was recently acquired by Facebook, has to consider whether making its software more available to such a large segment of the market and now through a major social media source will affect the exclusivity of its offerings among initial adopters and how it will maintain its success. As more competitors enter the market, both companies will have to continue to balance prior successes as user demographics evolve.