Apple Maps is dominating Google in the U.K.

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TomTom will continue to power Apple Maps.
TomTom will continue to power Apple Maps.
Photo: Apple

When Apple Maps disastrously launched in 2012 even the most faithful of Apple fanboys thought it’d never be competitive against the obviously superior Google Maps. But just two years after it announced its own mapping platform, Apple is now dominating Google in mapping traffic on 4G, at least on one U.K. carrier.

EE, the U.K. mobile network operator that also owns Orange and T-Mobile, released a new report on its 4G mobile networks today that shows Apple Maps is quickly outpacing Google Maps on mobile, despite only beginning to capture marketshare at the end of 2012.

“Traffic on the new Apple Maps now represents 70% of mapping traffic on the 4G network, from 60% in the second half of 2013, taking market share from Google maps, which is down 7ppts. This difference is even more marked over 3G where Apple Maps is up 19ppts and Google Maps is down 15ppts.”

Obviously, EE’s report is only for one carrier and fails to give a glimpse of the global maps battle, but it is interesting that Apple Maps usage is already so high, even on the largest U.K. carrier that was the first to roll out 4G for iPhone and Android handsets.

Apple’s controversial decision to purge iOS of Google Maps with the release of iOS 6 received its fair share of criticism, but Apple has made a steady push to make its mapping platform competitive with a number of new features along with updating its data everyday. iOS 8 is also making it easier for users to switch from Apple Maps to Google Maps or other services to get transit directions on other information.

What do you think of the Apple Maps? Is it finally a viable Google Maps alternative, or are iOS users too lazy to switch to other map apps? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

 

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