Analyst: Apple’s iPhone Has Three-Year Lead Over Rivals

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Apple's iPhone and iPod had the fastest adoption ever, analysts say.
Apple's iPhone and iPod had the fastest adoption ever, analysts say.

Apple has a two to three-year lead over its rivals with adoption of the iconic iPhone and iPod outpacing other technology giants by up to eight-fold, Morgan Stanley analysts announced Tuesday.

Using a 92-slide presentation, a team of 27 Morgan Stanley analysts presented a seminar on “The Mobile Internet” with the stars being Apple and its users. “Apple has a two or three-year lead,” analyst Katy Huberty told reporters gathered on a conference call. That head start comes with Apple’s 57 million iPhones, 100,000 App Store entries and 200 million iTunes customers.


Of particular interest during the slide show was a graph illustrating the meteoric adoption rate of Apple’s environment, such as the iPhone and iPod touch. Apple required just 9 quarters from June 2007 to reach 57 million users. Japan’s NTT DoCoMo took twice that long, Netscape five times and AOL eight times as long as Cupertino.

iphone-usage

That nearly-vertical rise in adoption may be due to the different way iPhone and iPod touch users approach the mobile Internet. Although they account for just 17 percent of smartphones, iPhone and iPod touch users are 65 percent of global mobile browsers and 50 percent of mobile app users, according to the analyst firm.

In another example, iPhone owners do not follow typical cell phone usage patterns. For instance, cell phone users spend 70 percent of the 40 minutes each day making phone calls. iPhone owners, however, are almost a mirror image: only 45 percent of the time is spent making calls. Additionally, iPhone owners spend 60 minutes each day on their devices – much of it surfing the Web, e-mailing , playing games or listening to music.

[Via Fortune and AppleInsider]

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