Welcome back to another delightful edition of the Navigating Android Market Share 
Report . For the second month in a row, Samsung has ruled the charts, occupying all ten spots. Surprisingly, there was still quite a bit of movement between their devices.
I publish these reports every month as a service of the NativeX Games Task Force. The goal is to paint a clearer picture of which devices and versions of Android are most popular amongst mobile gamers. For those who are unfamiliar with the NativeX Games Task Force, we work with game developers to improve engagement, retention, and monetization in their iOS and Android games.
As always, this market share data is based on daily active users in NativeX’s network of games. That means this data is great for Android game developers but if your Android app is not a game, you should not use this report. The “all Android apps” data provided in the Android Developer Portal will be more useful to you.
Android Device Market Share
The table below breaks down the same device market share data in a different view.
Daily active users in the NativeX network continue to rise which has contributed to some of the movement between Samsung devices. I won’t even bother talking about the top two spots in the list as they have remained the same since January. What I really want to talk about is the shift between the Galaxy S4 and the S3 mini. These devices slowly crept their way towards the top 10 and finally arrived in June. This month they moved up even further and it doesn’t look like they hit their peak yet.
With the broad line of new S4 devices in the market coupled with S2 users approaching the end of their contracts, I expect a new phone to move to the top near spring 2014. Motorola is releasing their highly anticipated Moto X this month so Android developers should keep an eye on it.
While the Droid line is very popular it will be a while before it makes a dent in the top ten.
Android OS Market Share
Now I want to give everyone a look at which operating systems Android gamers are running on their devices. For your convenience, I included both the Android Developer Portal’s data along with NativeX DAU data. Again, please keep in mind the OS breakdown for NativeX is based on DAU from games, so expect the two charts to vary significantly. The Android Developer Portal includes all Android apps.
Two of my four have yet to be debunked but I’m still crossing my fingers. The HTC One is dancing on the fringe of the list so I still have a chance!
2013 Predictions
- Nexus 7 will continue to climb during January and overtake the Galaxy Tab 2 (7”) and won’t be challenged from another Android tablet this year.
- Samsung Galaxy S3 will likely hold the top spot throughout 2013 with rumors of the S4 releasing in May and the majority of early adopters still enjoying their 2-year carrier contract with the S3.
- Sony will drop off the charts completely and not recover another spot for the remainder of 2013. Along with Sony, LG will fail to chart with a non-Nexus phone.
- HTC will be making a big push this year for new phones considering they lost market share last year. Expect to see them to replace 1 or 2 spots on the charts quite possibly with the rumored M7 which is rumored to release in February or March.
Published: Aug 6, 2013 04:05 pm