∞ Android is a rounding error compared to iPad activations

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Good technology on Thursday released a report comparing activations of Apple products to Android-based devices. Among its customers, Apple is still in the lead.

The report, which focuses on the third quarter of 2011, counts thousands of enterprise and public sector companies. According to the data, Android did gain some ground in total activations, but Apple held onto its lead.

John Herrema, senior vice president of Corporate Strategy at Good Technology, blamed “consumers holding back purchases of new iPhones in anticipation of Apple’s latest release,” for the dip in iOS activations in the quarter.

Backing up that theory, Good found a 25 percent daily increase in iPhone activations since the iPhone 4S was released.

If you look at the the iPad and iPad 2 specifically, Android isn’t even providing any competition for Apple.

“To say iOS tablets (iPad and iPad 2) dominated adoption in the enterprise is to understate the case,” wrote Good in its report. “While more and more devices running the tablet-tuned Honeycomb version of Google’s Android operating system have been released, Android tablet activations within Good’s customer base remain in the realm of a rounding error compared to what we’re seeing with iPad and iPad 2.”

  • While Android continues to gain market share overall, Good’s enterprise end users are showing clear preference for Apple products
  • Among the top 10 industry verticals, financial services continued to see the highest level of iPad activation, accounting for 46 percent for the quarter—more than tripling the amount of activation in any other industry
  • The iPad and iPad2 represent over 96 percent of total tablet activations
  • Android tablets increased slightly to 4 percent of overall tablet activations for the quarter
  • Android smartphones represented nearly 39 percent of all smartphone (non tablet) activations compared to iPhone’s 61 percent, despite Android’s overall market share growth
  • iOS devices (iPhone, iPad and variants), accounted for over 70 percent of activations in Q3


  • His Shadow

    As a few Apple centric analysts predicted (John Gruber chief among them i believe) without the leverage of the carriers, there is simply no reason to buy an Android tablet over an iPad all things considered. And the target demographic of the non-Apple tablets is people who refuse to buy Apple as evidenced by Apple’s competition constantly referencing Apple. “Not Apple” simply isn’t a worthwhile strategy, unless you are content selling to fringe elements.

  • Anonymous

    Didn’t get this:
    “Android smartphones represented nearly 39 percent of all smartphone (non tablet) activations compared to iPhone’s 61 percent, despite Android’s overall market share growth”
    How could iPhone activations be that larger when the overall marketshare is smaller?

    (this statement is for smartphones, meaning no iPad and no iPod touch).

    • Bill

      The reason is this report that this article is talking about is only of Good technology customers.  Until this article I never even heard of this company and do not even know what all they do.  For all I know is the provide some sort of service that an ios device needs more than Android. 

      This report is NOT based on overall market share but just those of Good technologies customer base.

    • Anonymous

      “How could iPhone activations be that larger when the overall marketshare is smaller?”

      The article probably could have clarified this a bit.  Basically, if you want to install and manage iOS or Android devices in the enterprise environment, Good technologies is pretty much the only game in town.  Likewise, what you’re seeing here is activations by corporations.  Clearly, Android phones are doing better in the consumer market.

      I’m actually surprised that Android devices in general are doing as well as they are in the enterprise market given that they are less secure and are more prone to malware, etc.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=703848523 Harvey Lubin

      This report was for “thousands of enterprise and public sector companies”, so it could be because professionals prefer iPhones, while teens prefer Android phones.

      • http://twitter.com/seanlowcay Sean Lowcay

        This theory would make a lot of sense to me based on what I see on the trains in Singapore everyday.  Android users are invariably high schoolers or typically geeks that are either cheap or can’t program in Objective C.

  • Anonymous

    maybe because google counts every android phone resetting as an activation.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=703848523 Harvey Lubin

      Good one! :-)

  • Anonymous

    What about the iPod touch?  Where does it fit in with iOS calculations?  There are a lot of people who don’t want an iPhone because they already have an Android phone that work gave them, but they want the iOS for everything else, so they buy an iPod touch.

  • Dougu

    Good Technology provide a secure email service for corporations and is used on ipads and iphones for most large enterprises as an alternative to the Blackberry BES setup. 

  • Bill Burkholder

    This doesn’t even include lots of large and mid-size businesses who don’t use Good Technologies, but support iOS and Android in other ways. Everyone around me uses an iPhone or a dumb phone, except for one derelict with an Android thingy. And he’s rabidly waiting for his contract to run out so he can get the iPhone 4S.

  • Anonymous

    Has there actually been evidence of this?