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June 15, 2010

According to a new study performed by research firm Quantcast, Google's Android operating system continues to gain market share over Apple's iPhone and also the iPad. In fact, over the last three months, Android's adoption rate has accelerated a lot more rapidly than it did the previous three months, with the iPhone the biggest loser of all.

At least some of that growth can be attributed to the incredibly fast growing arsenal of Android devices hitting the market recently, such as HTC’s Evo 4G offered by Sprint Nextel last week.

Later this summer we'll see if Android's strong upward trend can hold as Apple's iPad and new iPhone 4 gain some kind of momentum nevertheless.

It's actually hard to know in advance which report or data-collection method to believe when it comes to mobile operating systems. One metrics firm will hype Android's surge based on its growing share of mobile browser usage and another will downplay Android's position with data that shows the OS commands mobile ad requests only in the single digits.

So the numbers can be all over the map, really, adding even more confusion to the mix.

In May, the latest JiWire Mobile Audience Insights research report showed that the iOS accounted for a little over 95.3 percent of all mobile ad requests while Android grabbed a paltry 2.3 percent in the same study.

But keep in mind that only about 2,000 respondents were surveyed for that report, so take that with a grain of salt.

In a chart from Quantcast dating back to January of last year, Android's share of mobile Internet traffic was in the mid-to-upper single digits while iOS neared almost 80.1 percent.

While Google's Android share has undeniably increased of late, its latest climb didn't begin until around August of last year.

Quantcast's latest numbers pinned iOS at the top of the mobile Web usage chart with almost 59 percent.

Android followed in a distant second at almost 20 percent, while other OSs commanded about 10.9 percent and Research In Motion’s BlackBerry OS grabbed almost 10.5 percent of the market at the end of last month.

The overall market share for Google’s Android operating system of mobile Web traffic jumped almost 12.3 percent in the 12-month period ending in May while Apple’s iOS share dropped 8.1% in the same period.

According to Quantcast's data, Android's been on a particularly impressive tear in the last three months when its market share rose 4.6 percent as iOS dropped 4.7 percent during that time.

The next three months will be revealing as to how Android will perform when compared to its Android counterpart.

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