iPhone Growth Explodes Outside the U.S.

Ed Sutherland ()

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The image of Apple’s marketplace being only within the shores of the United States appears as valid as Microsoft’s claims about Vista. The United States was tenth in the countries experiencing the most growth in demand for Apple’s handset, a new survey found Friday. Instead, Japan, France and Australia are Apple’s top three markets for its iPhone and iPod touch.

The Mobile Metrics report from AdMob said sales to Japan in 2009 grew 350 percent, while France saw a 300 percent jump with Australia close behind. The U.S. and Canadian markets showed more than 100 percent growth this year. Although U.S. growth lagged far behind the leaders, 50 percent of all iPhone and iPod touch users make the U.S. home, according to AdMob.

Overall, iPhone global sales rose by 150 percent during 2009.

The iPhone represented 38.3 percent of nearly 10 million requests to the AdMob network in November, a 6.2 percent increase over the previous month. The gains mostly were at the expense of Nokia, which saw a 3.3 percent drop in requests, reports said.

Although the report suggested little growth in the U.S., the iPhone has caught up with and passed Windows Mobile-based handsets, in terms of American users.

In an intriguing bit of back-room trivia, Admob was recently at the center of a growing competition between Apple and Internet giant Google. The Mountain View, Calif. company recently paid $750 million to acquire the mobile advertising firm after Apple had been in talks with AdMob execs about purchasing the company.

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[Via AppleInsider, Silicon Alley Insider]

6 comments »

About the author

Ed Sutherland

Ed Sutherland is a veteran technology journalist who first heard of Apple when they grew on trees, Yahoo was run out of a Stanford dorm and Google was an unknown upstart. Since then, Sutherland has covered the whole technology landscape, concentrating on tracking the trends and figuring out the finances of large (and small) technology companies.

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  • gecko

    Hehe. Who needs China.

  • Sayam Aggarwal

    Growth in Japan is justified seeing if you consider the results of recent studies, which shows that iPhone has 45% of the total smartphone marketshare in the country.

  • Jase

    Maybe iPhone has a better carrier in Japan, hence the growth. If iPhone was with Verizon here sales would be through the roof. Please let Verizon get the iPhone this year.

  • Duy

    iPhone growth will sky rocket in Canada next year with the two other major carriers in the country, Bell and Telus selling iPhones now.

  • Eric

    In Response to Gecko,

    We, the United States needs China.

  • iGenius

    Gecko –

    What they “need” is only relevant if they were on the edge. What would “be optimal” is the better metric for a company like Apple.

    China has huge potential and Apple’s experience there is a dismal failure. Losses are losses, and always to be avoided in places where great potential exists.

    And BTW, the results, while important on a micro-economic scale inside Apple, say nothing about the absolute level of success for Apple. The impressive percentage gains are best analyzed in terms of numbers of units sold, rather than as derived and presented, as a percentage of past sales. IOW, 350% of “very little” may or may not still be “very little”. The data presented, while valuable to indicate progress, doesn’t really show any specific magnitude of success.