iPod touch usage continues rapid ascent
Last year’s sleeper holiday hit product is turning into an ongoing phenomenon as iPhone touch users account for larger and larger shares of mobile Wi-Fi usage. Moreover, this is a trend that isn’t isolated to the US as Europeans on the go are increasing turning to Apple’s other handheld.
Admob reports that the iPod touch now accounts for 40 percent of the mobile Wi-Fi data requests generated by Apple handhelds in January, a significant rise over December’s 28 percent. Since September 2008, the iPod touch’s share of Apple handheld mobile Wi-Fi generated data requests has doubled.
Thereupon, wireless pundits and analysts began to take note of the iPod touch’s rapidly increasing usage in December and early January as units given as gifts were turned on and put to use.
“Amazingly, iPod Touch requests doubled overnight on Christmas and remained strong throughout the remainder of the month. In December, the iPod Touch generated 3.4 times more requests than in November,” AdMob reported through Insanely-Great Mac
“The iPod Touch: everything great about the iPhone, minus AT&T,” said Matt Rostoff via Blorge
Furthermore, this is a trend that is only gathering momentum as evidenced by the fact that Apple’s iPod Touch garnered a 10 percent share of the January mobile Wi-Fi data requests across Western Europe and 7.4 percent of worldwide requests. Further, in Apple’s home market, the iPod touch accounted for 12.3 percent of total requests.
With this information as a background, the question is whether the iPod touch is cannibalizing iPhone sales or adding to Apple’s already significant and growing share of the handheld market. Personally, I’m inclined to believe that smartphone sales are taking a hit as a category and that the iPod touch is, as noted above, “everything great about the iPhone, minus the contract,” especially the long tail cost, which amounts to nearly $2,000 in some US states and even more in other countries.
That is, iPhone sales might not be turning the industry on its head, but the iPod touch is definitely picking up the slack…
What’s your take?
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February 13th, 2009
I love my Touch . i use it all the time.
So do my kids.