Search
Close this search box.

Android users interact with their apps more than iOS users – and they aren’t all tight wads

This is an archived article - we have removed images and other assets but have left the text unchanged for your reference

The vexing question of how Android and iOS user behaviour differs – and what it means to retailers – has been thrown into the spotlight by research from Poq Studio which finds that Android users are much more App-happy than their iOS counterparts – and that those with high end Droid devices spend as much as Apple heads.


On average, Android users spent a whole minute longer than iOS users each time they browsed through one of Poq’s client’s apps (Android: 4:47min, iOS: 3:48min). They also viewed 5.2 more pages than iOS users each time they used an app (Android: 14 pages, iOS: 8.8 pages). Poq also discovered the same pattern when it looked at traffic to its clients’ mobile sites.

The data also revealed that users of most Android devices, high- or low-end, spent longer discovering products on Poq clients’ apps than iOS users did. Users of the Samsung Galaxy S Mini spent on average 1:05 minutes longer per time they visited their apps than iOS users did.

An exception was the Nokia Lumia, whose average users spent a quarter of a minute less browsing their apps than iOS users did. This was also the case for average amount of pages viewed per use of an app.

Customers browsing on high-end and low-end Android devices visited more pages on average than iOS users did. Google Nexus users viewed the most pages per visit, followed by Samsung Galaxy S and Samsung Galaxy S Mini users.

But it is in the value of these customers where the research really turns conventional wisdom on its head. At first glance, the findings support the notion that users shopping on iPhones and iPads have higher budgets to spend from their mobile devices than Android users. In December 2014, the average iOS user’s order value (£60.43) was around 1.4 times higher than the average Android user’s order value (£43.13) on the Poq Studio platform.

iOS users also carried out the vast majority (91.3%) of all app transactions. They contributed to 93.6% of the revenue generated through apps on the platform. It should be noted that Android apps had only been live for two months on the platform at this point.

The average iOS conversion rate was 2.3% – about 1.4 times higher than the average Android conversion rate (1.6%).

However, a closer look at the data revealed that users who own a high-end Android device actually rival iOS users in terms of conversion. On average, Google Nexus owners showed conversion rates that were 1.4 times higher than iPhone user conversion rates. Lower priced Android devices showed considerably lower conversion rates than iOS devices: the average iPhone user conversion rate was five times higher than the average Sony Xperia user conversion rates.

This echoes what Poq Studio client House of Fraser has seen and why the retailer has been prompted to introduce an Android app.

Outdoor accommodation specialist Pitchup.com has also released sales figures for January 2015 showing that, for the first time, Android smartphones are outperforming Apple’s iPhone in terms of revenue.

When comparing revenue generated from smartphone bookings in January 2015, Android smartphones have nudged ahead.

Of smartphone bookings made in January 2015, Android operating systems made up 48.1% of total revenue, with iOS generating 46.5%. The rest was made up of other operating systems, mostly Windows Phone.

This is a huge leap from a year ago, when iOS accounted for almost 60% of total revenue from smartphone bookings, with Android making up 40%.

Read More

Register for Newsletter

Group 4 Copy 3Created with Sketch.

Receive 3 newsletters per week

Group 3Created with Sketch.

Gain access to all Top500 research

Group 4Created with Sketch.

Personalise your experience on IR.net