Another Way of Slicing the Android, iOS, RIM Horserace: Facebook Monthly Actives
For mobile developers, there are more than plenty of statistics abound to gauge relative market size for different smartphone platforms.
Google’s Android chief Andy Rubin said last month that the OS is seeing more than 300,000 activations a day while Apple said in its most recent earnings call that the company has cumulatively sold 160 million iOS devices. Nielsen said today that Android, iOS and RIM are in a three-way tie among smartphone owners in the U.S.
However, a more relevant number to gauge potential market size for mobile app developers may be the number of Facebook users worldwide on each platform. Facebook is likely a decent proxy for smartphone users willing to download and engage with applications (outside of markets like Japan, China and South Korea where the company has a weak presence). Unlike the statistics that Apple has released, it also takes out users who may have more than one iOS device.
By this metric, Android is growing five times as fast as iOS, adding just over 99,000 monthly actives a day for Facebook’s native app. Facebook for iPhone boasts 63,021,033 monthly actives to Android’s 25,300,775, but it only adds about 19,750 monthly actives per day. When you add in HTC, Samsung, SonyEricsson, LG and Droid phones — many of which run Android — iOS still has a three-to-two lead for now. One other important detail to note is that Facebook for iPhone’s growth may also be on hiatus this week as consumers wait for the phone to come to Verizon on Feb. 10.
Other platforms are interesting to watch as well. Although Windows Phone 7 came to market last fall after a two to three year delay, it has shown a steady growth rate. Facebook for Windows Phone 7 has 320,807 monthly actives with the highest growth rate of any platform over the past week at 5.9 percent.
Snaptu, a company that helps Facebook reach feature phones that it doesn’t design native applications for, also boasted 3 percent growth this week by adding 119, 586 monthly actives to reach 3,565,651. Two weeks ago, Snaptu announced a partnership with Facebook to overhaul its apps for more than 2,500 models of feature phones.
Facebook Usage on Feature and Smartphones
| Name | MAU | Gain | Gain,% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. |  Facebook for Android |
25,300,775 | +693,653 | +3% |
| 2. |  Facebook for Blackberry Smartphones |
29,281,263 | +249,866 | +0.8% |
| 3. |  Facebook for iPhone |
63,021,033 | +138,280 | +0.2% |
| 4. |  Snaptu |
3,565,651 | +119,586 | +3% |
| 5. |  HTC Sense |
5,946,870 | +95,833 | +2% |
| 6. |  Ovi by Nokia |
2,468,604 | +74,879 | +3% |
| 7. |  Samsung Mobile |
5,106,133 | +54,388 | +1% |
| 8. |  DROID |
1,910,688 | +42,536 | +2% |
| 9. |  LG Phone |
963,382 | +25,787 | +3% |
| 10. |  Facebook for Windows Phone |
320,807 | +17,951 | +5.9% |
February 3rd, 2011 at 9:07 am
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February 3rd, 2011 at 9:34 am
You forgot WebOS with about 800,000 MAU
February 3rd, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Interesting figures but Facebook is not an accurate barometer for mobile OS use. I realise that the new Verizon will increase sales, many of them to existing users but this only affects US market, but these are interesting numbers for mobile Facebook app developers.
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Thanks David. I was ranking the Top 10 by growth week-over-week, not total overall footprint.
February 3rd, 2011 at 1:44 pm
@clark Jones. You’re right. Of course it’s not. But most of the figures released by the platform companies themselves don’t really say anything about the total active usage for each OS. They usually say activations per day, which doesn’t factor in devices-per-user or replacement phones. There are also likely tens of thousands of Android phones activated in China each day which a mobile developer here in the U.S. might not care about. There are probably also plenty of people who have smartphones but don’t really engage with very many apps at all. Someone who buys a smartphone and downloads the Facebook app is probably more likely to download and use other apps.
February 6th, 2011 at 9:21 am
I wrote a post about this a few months ago.
There’s a few reasons why it’s a bit dodgy as a metric such as:
* Friends borrow each others phones and activate the app under their name when they wanna check their account
But I think it’s a good way to look at the market. Want to check what friends of yours have what phone? Check my post here:
http://www.mobileinc.co.uk/2010/11/use-facebook-to-check-handset-popularity-between-your-friends/
February 9th, 2011 at 6:12 pm
[...] and other mobile platforms stand as measured by monthly active users of Facebook smartphone apps. Like we said last week, this isn’t a perfectly accurate measure for overall market share. But it may be relevant to [...]
July 22nd, 2011 at 2:44 pm
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