Android leads in smartphone marketshare; iPhone, iPad leads in business, profitability

Henry McCracken over at Time has done us all a favor by collecting various data sets that illustrate the state of iOS versus Android.

The data ranges from device marketshare to revenue from app downloads, which presents some stark differences between the two platforms.

We unpack the results below.

Google’s Android platform held over half the U.S. smartphone market in January at 52.3% thanks to the success of popular devices made my Samsung and HTC, while iOS held 37.8% solely due to the iPhone, according to Comscore.

Notably, Android users download more apps than iOS users. Half of mobile app downloads took place on Android in Q1 2013, while 40% of mobile apps were downloaded on iOS. Again, Android’s lead in market share contributes to their success.

While those numbers look quite impressive in Google’s favor, they do not tell the entire story.

In the tablet realm, for example, Apple’s iPad won 53.8% of the market last year, while tablet’s running Android followed with 42.7%, according to IDC.

Perhaps most importantly, Canalys reports that revenue from app downloads largely originated from iOS at 74% in Q1 2013.

Despite leading in app downloads as we noted earlier, Android only accounted for 20% of download revenue during the same period of time.

Businesses, it appears, largely trust Apple’s platform for their operation. Citrix cites 62% of enterprise use of mobile platforms in Q4 using iOS over 35% using Android.

While Android with its endless assortment of handsets with different form factors and price points leads in marketshare, Apple clearly dominates with iOS in business and revenue.