What is Wrong with This Picture? iPhone Use is Declining? And Symbian Use is Growing?

This is so counter-intuitive and bizarre, but I think we can make some sense out of it. This is StatCounter who measure global web and mobile traffic. So this is not new phone sales, this is not a measurement of installed bases, it is a measurement of actual usage of devices. I have used the filter of 'mobile OS' for Mobile device operating systems. Note, it is not just cellular use, it includes WiFi use (so Sony PlayStation Portable is included) which means that the iOS category includes both the iPhone and the iPod Touch use. But look at the graph. And look at Symbian use for the past six months.. What the Heck is happenin' here?

 


The graph is taken from StatCounter website, so please link there to get latest numbers. But the finding is bizarre and very counter-intuitive. It does show clearly the rise of Android (purple line) - no problem there. It shows clearly the peak of the Blackberry (black line) and the decline in the past year of Blackberry, no surprise there.

It shows a strange gradual decline of the Apple iOS (green line) for the past year and a half, but do not worry, that makes perfect sense as this is a percentage of the whole of global mobile OS usage, so remember, while iPhone and iPod Touch users have very high usage, their proportion of the total installed base is now declining, as a percentage, vs Android specifically. So early on, we could all download the Angry Birds only on an iPhone but Angry Birds then went to Android and now is on most platforms etc..  So some of the exceptionally heavy usage that only iPhone (and Touch) users could do a couple of years ago, is now spread more evently across all platforms. So the iOS total usage is still well above its installed base, due to the fact that all iPhones are very easy to use, most are on data plans, and the iPod Touch WiFi usage boosts the iOS total usage number. The iOS line (green line) will continue to decline and eventually settle somewhat above Apple's actual market share ie somewhere near 20%

So. The weird odd-man-out is Symbian (blue line). What? Symbian has been losing market share of new phone sales forever (as it started with 100% initially, obviously so its only way was down over time) and from Q1 of this year Android has passed Symbian as the bestselling smartphone OS in new sales. The installed base will lag that statistic, obviously (many of us still have older phones) so yes, Symbian is bigger in installed base and it makes sense its usage is above that of Android, while Android is growing. But what happened from about December 2010?

In the last seven months, Symbian usage has grown significantly! Even as new sales of Symbian based phones are now crashing, the USAGE of Symbian is growing. More than that, look at the graph - Nokia's Symbian is TAKING MARKET SHARE FROM APPLE? Wot? Yes, obviously Android is taking 'more' market share (in usage) from the iPhone and both Symbian and Android are taking it from Blackberry, but Symbian?

This is the 'burning platforms' Symbian, the same one that Nokia CEO said was rejected by consumers and had to die. The one he wants to replace with Microsoft Windows Phone 7 (which is so little it doesn't show in the graph, it is part of 'other'). And since about December the usage of Symbian has grown quite strongly from about 30% to about 35%...  This from the platform that was killed on February 11?

So, first, why is this? Its mostly because of Ovi, secondly because of operator billing and operator/carrier support, and thirdly because of Nokia reach in markets where there are not many PCs (Asia, Africa, Latin America) where for many less affluent users, their Nokia phone is their PC equivalent. But if you show this graph to any .. say advertiser or app developer or brand or bank or partner, isn't this verification that Symbian is clearly the biggest OS out there, has the biggest total traffic and should be not 'one of the big 3' platforms, it is clearly the biggest platform. (and while we are on the 'big 3' - Microsoft does not register, so the bullsh*t that Microsoft is one of the big three platforms is sheer rubbish).

But yes, the uptick. Why is the reversal of the trend in December? That timing is because Nokia's new OS Symbian S^3 came to the market globally on the N8 and other premium Nokia smartphones. So the latest Symbian S^3 is indeed far more user-friendly and consumers like it - and users are using it! (And now in July Symbian has been updated even more with Anna).

Why would anyone argue that Symbian is dying? That Nokia is somehow losing to Apple, if Symbian USAGE is taking market share from iPhone USAGE? Wot? That is what this evidence is, globally. Don't tell me the N8 is a lousy phone and Symbian is obsolete. It would be impossible to see these stats if that was so.

Symbian in its latest edition is strong, and if you ask users - of their actual usage of what they have in their pocket - these numbers are rather clear. Symbian usage is growing. I think the CEO of the company who owns that platform should not be setting fires, but rather embracing this GROWTH in usage and cherish it and support it. (And support the migration of Nokia developers from Symbian to MeeGo so that MeeGo would become the third platform with about 35% of total global mobile OS usage... Yeah, the obvious strategy is pretty.. obvious).

Comments

[Tom Hume]

At MobileMonday on, err, Monday, Simon from Comscore showed off some very interesting stats around mobile and app usage. For properties like Facebook, he was showing how app-related usage is growing sharply over the last year whilst web-related traffic is growing only modestly.

Perhaps web traffic from iOS devices is being substituted by that from popular apps? I'd find that more credible than an upturn in Symbian usage or a downturn in iOS usage.

[dotpeople]

The N8 has helped me realize that my mobile use case priorities are:

(1) camera
(2) text
(3) voice (PSTN, SIP-over-VPN, Skype)
(4) email
(5) media (music and ebooks)
(6) web
(7) apps

N8 is truly horrible at #4 and poor-to-adequate at 5-7, but is world-leading for my top usage scenarios.

[Joshua Williams]

This is quite interesting, but it clearly shows something ,there have been a real coup de'tat to knock-out Nokia and it has been delivered, and quite clearly it is working very very fine, you know from a long time about two or three years now it was Nokia was losing mindshare and Nokia is using and old operating system called Symbian , and that apple ios is the best out there. Now you can see Nokia has it mojo back (Symbian Anna, Belle and all might N9(Which every Nokia user out there is saying they would buy one to remind themselves of Nokia)). But the syndicate that has a hold on who makes or gives the command is gradually making sure that Nokia goes down, i would let you on a little secret, have you realized that Apple is coming out full time on iOS5 and has agreed to pay back money owed to Nokia see all the feautres it is ready to implement in iOS5, they are all Nokia features and without paying Nokia it cannot bring it out without been sued. let me let you on another one. when Apple introduced Face-time aka Nokia true 3G video call, you have to pass the traffic over a 3G network because Apple wanted to avoid Nokia they passed the traffic over WiFi which was complicated and unneeded, when all you could do was pass the traffic over 3G, since they already have their phone doing 3G data. now that Apple has paid Nokia see them implement many Nokia features on their phone.

And trust me , Nokia has been sold, battered , knocked out by some key people in the world all that is playing out is what they ask Elop to do, One thing u guys keep on forgetting is that he appears in a company that someone want to take over. and he is gradually breaking Nokia down and making it weak so that the person behind the whole show would show up and buy Nokia away.

[virgil]

Not so fast, Tomi.
Look at the regions, I think something is wrong.
I selected just the latest 6 months, and looked at all the continents.
Symbian is declining everywhere - except in North America, where it's making an absolut killing! (no it's at 10%, starting below 4): http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_os-na-monthly-201010-201107

So - either you can explain Symbian success in North America, or we'll have to conclude it's an error.

[@rodrigottr]

I have another explanation: The Symbian USAGE could be more related to users who already had Symbian phones but didn't used data. And started using data more frequently due to cheaper data plans carriers are creating:

In Brazil TIM created a plan where the user pays 0,50 BRL (0,32 US$) PER DAY OF USAGE for pre payed users

I even had a data plan and became a pre-payed user since then.

What explains why this grafic shows raise on symbian USAGE while others shows down on symbian sales and market share.

Eventhow, I agree with Tomi about how big is the community of Symbian users and how long life it will still have, as long is the life of Nokia phones. My friend bought a N95 in 2007 and used it untill this month WITHOUT EVEN CHANGING THE BATTERY TO A NEW ONE! And that is why the best path for Nokia was surely MeeGo. This population of symbian users are an incredible asset unexplored.

[Kalle]

I think what has happened is that the upgraded web browser and improving app store have activated Symbian users to browse the web. What I'm wondering is if Nokia could keep up the good work and fix rest of the bugs and even improve Symbian where it could be in few years.

[Steve Barker]

Hi Tomi,

These graphs don't represent absolute volumes of data, they express a percentage of data split between the different Mobile OS's. They describe relative proportions of internet use.

Virgil above is right - only N America shows a significant increase in Symbian's PROPORTION of internet usage.

As you have been very quick to point out, Symbian sales are down, so this cannot be explained by increased number of users - especially in N America which is historically hostile territory to Nokia and poorer carrier support than in other markets.

So this rules out your theory of Symbain^3 being more usable as the explanation, I'm afraid. This is disappointing for me because I love Symbian (and use it daily).

Nor can it be explained by changing patterns of use; i.e. existing users 'suddenly discovering the internet' on their cranky old Nokias - or else we'd see a similar pattern worldwide.

Data networks are well established in N America, so it can't be that...

The only remaining explanation is that as the other OS's are growing to include a greater number of users who DON'T use the internet on their mobiles as much.

Purely as an anecdote, I notice a lot more older people (and hey, I'm in my mid 40's!) using smartphones - especially iPhones. From what I can see, most of these mainly use them as a telephone; the iPhone is especially popular because, as you point out above, it is so easy to use. This is not a back-handed compliment from me, it is an honest observation: iPhone is the easiest smartphone to use by far, with the possible exception of Windows Phone 7.

And that brings us back to Nokia 'abandoning' Symbian so cruelly; This graph kinda makes Elop's case stronger:

More people are choosing iPhone because it is easier to use rather than choosing it for it's undeniably good internet facilities. Similarly, we know that Symbian has a dated UI and relatively poor browsers (soon to be improved a bit, admittedly) so it is entirely logical for Nokia to adopt an OS with a simplistic UI because that is demonstrably where the market is going...

Maybe Mr Elop is not so deluded after all; this graph seems to back him up, certainly.

[parastar]

Tomi, everyone can see that killing Symbian/Meego/Qt is a clear paranoia, however we cannot accept he has no idea what he is doing, he has a plan, and agenda and the BoD knows and agree with that plan too.

My naive explanation is that Microsoft is trying at any cost to become a dominate ecosystem in mobile world. Nokia which was already in trouble, (reasons well known) decided to surrender than to fight. Under this prism Elop's burning platform memo, N9 death on arrival, statements about Meego, make perfect sense.

[Nimetön Pelkuri]

@parastar

"My naive explanation is that Microsoft is trying at any cost to become a dominate ecosystem in mobile world. Nokia which was already in trouble, (reasons well known) decided to surrender than to fight. Under this prism Elop's burning platform memo, N9 death on arrival, statements about Meego, make perfect sense. "

Surrender and sabotage your own products for Microsoft?! If this is true, then the shareholders should be very pissed and a law suit against eFlop and the Board should be on its way already. The board and eFlop are supposed to work for Nokia and it's shareholders. Not Microsoft.

[cycnus]

@Nimeton Pelkuri

If you googled more about elop.
He's also @ macromedia when macromedia were sold to adobe

nokia board of director really made a bad choice for selecting elop.

[cycnus]

this is the link that Macromedia made Steven elop the CEO
before steven elop sold it to adobe.

http://www.adobe.com/macromedia/ir/macr/news/2005/q305_pressrelease02.html

[Tomi T Ahonen]

To all..

(thanks virgil)

Yeah, I went and compared the regions and the only continent with growth is North America. Other regions show flat or decline in Symbian use but N Am is strong growth. Strong! And I dug further, Mexico is slight growth. USA is very strong growth and US Symbian use went from negligable to about 6% and far more than Symbian's actual market share of installed base in USA; but the big jump is Canada where Symbian is challenging iPhone and massive jump.

I am baffled and would ask if any US readers can shed any light. On the Canada side, I remember there were several Canadian launches of top end Nokia (Symbian) smartphones late last year/early this year, so it would explain it a bit. But more than that, and certainly it doesn't explain USA sudden growth - I would think it might be Ovi availability? Is it that Ovi opened - or got carrier billing - so many 'pent up demand' and 'serious' smartphone users had capable Nokia phones in their pockets but Ovi was not supported (or didn't have carrier billing) and now perhaps that would explain why the sudden change?

Clearly the effect is only in North America (and is in all 3 countries, least dramatic in Mexico, most dramatic in Canada). But yeah, thanks virgil for noticing it. But it is then EVEN MORE puzzling? I mean, Android? iPhone? Nokia is a lost cause in North America but suddenly 6% of US smartphone users and what was it something like 30% of Canadian smartphone users are now coming from Symbian devices.. it is weird.

Thanks. I'll return with comments to all of you later, keep the discussions going

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[jbg]

I would definitely agree with Tom Hume above : StatCounter only measures hits on websites, and only websites that have this audience measurement tool installed.
That leaves out :
- sites that do not use this solution
- application traffic

[Mark Walker]

Great post and very interesting comments.

From what I understand up until recently the Ovi store was not promoted that much in the US and the available apps were pretty basic. This has changed now but unsure of exact dates.

PS. I think the comment above mine might not be that relevant, just a guess.

[Matthew Artero]

The slow declines in these graphs also tell us the replacement cycle cannot be 18 months. The speed of growth of market share even amoung the fastest risers also indicates a much slower replacement cycle.

A replacement rate of 18 months means that 66% of phones in use are being replaced every year. The 1.38 billion phones sold last year is only 32% of the 4.3 billion phones in use at the time. A replacement rate of 18 months means almost 3 billion phones will be sold this year after the growth rate is added to the replacement rate.

[The_Guest_Who]

Tomi...

As a US Symbian user (N8), I have a couple of points that might explain the upswing in the North American graph (and the USA's moderate increase):
- T-mobile launched the 5230 Nuron, and promoted it with their $10/mth "phone-first" unlimited 3G data plan (even though S60v5 is definitely a smartphone OS). Also, they were giving these phones away (free on contract) as part of an add-a-line promo for quite sometime. Free handset and cheap data plan would equal more web usage.
- Canadian discount carriers WIND and Mobilicity started offering the 5230 and the E73. Discount data on very capable phones.
- T-Mobile's launch of the C7 Astound was the premiere of Symbian^3 on a national carrier in the US. Those who were interested in the new Symbian, but didn't want to pay upwards of $400 for an N8 or C6-01 (unlocked), were happy to pick it up on contract.

Just a few thoughts...

[random poster]

Symbian could be declining every where and still be growing globally. How is that possible, you ask? Simple, volume in the regions where it is strong - Africa, Asia, South America - is growing, as the emerging countries ramp up their adoption of smartphones, which augments their contribution to the worldwide percentage.

People don't seem to understand market share numbers.

Here is another way of looking at the situation of the smartphone market when Mr Elop decided to talk about burning platforms and Icy Waters : http://www.asymco.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Screen-shot-2011-02-20-at-2-20-11.48.41-PM.png

Symbian clearly is going down in flames.

[Jukka]

The problem with Symbian is, that it is even worse fragmented than Android. Under the brand name Symbian there are 3 versions: s60v3, s60v5 and ^3 which are not really compatible with each other and even different device models have Serious compatibility quirks.

Ios is the most uniform of them all. Any ios app works on any ios device. This is not the case by far with Symbian.

[Matthew Artero]

If the replacement cycle is 18 months and there is a Symbian boycott the Ovi store should be in freefall crashing and burning. A replacement cycle of 18 months means that Ovi is losing 66% of its shoppers every year.

[Matthew Artero]

If someone believes the replacement cycle is 18 months then they believe that 66% of the market is up for grabs every year.

Because the replacement cycle is actually over 3 years, this belief could cause them to spend more money then it is possible to ever get back and make decisions that are impossible to recover from.

The longer actual replacement cycle also means that a manufacturer can not lose more than 32% of the number of phones it has in use per year.

The number of customers of an app store does not reduce by more than 32% per year.

It’s important for owners of OSs and app stores to know what there real options and strengths are.

If one thinks that they are competing against a replacement cycle of 18 months they could become very fearful and nervous, and make decisions that are unnecessarily drastic. They could erroneously see their strength as weaknesses, causing them to back the wrong product, not support the right one, and fire people they need.