The iPhone may now rank third for smart phone market share, but it is still number one for banking applications.
Market researchers TowerGroup found that Android currently has 31.2 percent of the market share; 30.4 percent is owned by RIM; Apple has 24.7 percent. Trailing them by large amounts are Microsoft Window 7 phones with a paltry 8 percent and Palm devices are just at 3.2 percent.
But banks are writing applications for mobile services such as account access and online bill pay for the iPhone because that’s the phone for which most other industry developers are creating applications.
“But support for the Android is surging,” said Andy Schmidt, TowerGroup’s research director for commercial banking and payments, speaking at the company’s annual financial services conference in Boston.
Other banking-related findings: about 60 percent of phone purchases this year will be completed on smartphones and 56 percent of the 200 banks attending the conference offered neither mobile bill pay or mobile gift cards.
Side question: how much banking do you currently do on your mobile phone?
I downloaded my bank’s app, but the only time I actually used it was while on vacation to check credit card charges.
Via MacWorld UK
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
7 responses to “Android has market share, but banks design for iPhones”
I’ve used my bank’s app maybe once on my iPod touch. It was a pain to set up. Then I moved to an iPhone, tried to use it, and learned you could only authorize one app at a time. What a PITA. So I ignore it. I can always use Safari to access online banking.
I’m guessing this is because iOS is the only serious secure platform and the market share figures for Android are faulty and based on loosely reported “sales” of handsets?
Also, do teenage boys and hackers even *have* bank accounts? :-)
The payoff for designing a great iOS app is a lot higher than for Android, especially these apps that are used to market a company’s products. Only BofA’s iPhone app will get any press, so it has to be top notch. Most people will accept that a great iPhone app must also mean a great Android version, but the Android can be a POS and no one will care. 4 out of 5 of your customers may use Android, but all anyone wants to see is your iPhone app, so that better be where you spend your money.
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regard:
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