Samsung's range of Galaxy S smartphones has won it a big share of the Android market. Photograph: Kim Hong-Ji/Reuters
Should Apple be more scared of Samsung than it is of Google? That's the question posed by new research on the Android market by mobile analytics firm Flurry. Its conclusion: yes, perhaps it should.
The study analysed a sample of 45,340 Android devices in May, breaking them down by device type (88% smartphones and 12% tablets) but also by manufacturer.
"Samsung is the dominant manufacturer of Android devices. Its phones represented 59% of the phones in our overall sample of Android phones, and its tablets represented 42% of the tablets in our sample," explained Flurry's Mary Ellen Gordon in a blog post.
Flurry claims to be tracking 576m Android devices through its analytics and advertising tools, indicating 506.9m smartphones and 69.1m tablets – which in turn suggests Samsung has at least 299m active Android smartphones and 29m active Android tablets out there.
Separate research into the iOS market published by Flurry last week claimed it was tracking 397m active iOS devices split 72-28 between iPhone and iPad, with iPod touch not counted. That implies 285.8m active iPhones and 111.2m active iPads – figures that can be set alongside the Samsung stats.
Samsung's lead in the smartphone market is well established now. Research firm Gartner's recently-published figures for the second quarter of 2013 claimed Samsung sold 71.4m smartphones in that three-month period alone, taking a 31.7% share of all global smartphone sales.
In recent times, Apple's senior executives have responded to Android's growth by shifting their attack strategy, including claiming that owners of iOS devices use them more.
"iPhone users use the iPhone 50 per cent more that Android users use their phones," said chief executive Tim Cook during his keynote speech at Apple's WWDC event in June, citing a study by another research firm, Experian.
It's on exactly this point that Flurry's new report suggests Apple cannot be complacent about the threat posed by Samsung.
"Overall, owners of Samsung phones spent 14% more time using apps than owners of other Android phones and owners of Samsung tablets spent 10% more time using apps than owners of other Android tablets," wrote Gordon.
Owners of Samsung devices don't just use apps more than the average Android owner; they're also more likely to fall into demographic profiles – mums, business travellers, social influencers etc – that are prized by advertisers.
"In those respects, they are more similar to owners of iOS devices than owners of other Android devices are," wrote Gordon.
The report ends by suggesting that if Samsung can bump up its share of the tablet market while maintaining its lead in the smartphone space, it will supplant Google as the true rival to Apple.
"If they can do both, they will rule the Android Kingdom, and Samsung, rather than Google, will pose the greater threat to Apple."
The suggestion is profoundly unshocking to anyone who's been following the smartphone market over the last couple of years, but Flurry's research is useful for another reason: the reminder that Android isn't one, unified threat to iOS.
Samsung is one element; Amazon and its Kindle Fire (and possible smartphone plans) another; and the rise of local manufacturers' Android devices and associated app stores in China yet another.
Understanding the figures, habits and demographic data for these individual prongs of the Android assault on Apple's smart devices, rather than simply viewing the market as an Apple v Google slugfest, is going to be increasingly important.
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