Without any debate, Android is now the world’s most popular mobile OS. The OS is currently dominating in both the segments–smartphone as well as Tablet. But while there’s a discussion about the adoption of smartphones and tablets among enterprises, then Google’s Android always lags behind Apple’s iOS. According to a survey report, conducted over 4,000 customers from financial services, healthcare, energy & utilities, government, legal, manufacturing and high tech, from Good Technology, a enterprise mobility firm, iOS devices accounted for 77% of all activation among enterprises during Q4, 2012.
The survey report includes half of the FORTUNE 100 companies. As per the report, iOS devices succeeded to grab eight of the top ten spots on the most popular device list among enterprises during the last quarter. In the contrary, Android device activation dropped by 6.3% in Q4 2012, compared to the same quarter of the previous year. However, the OS-powered devices still accounted for 22.7% of all activation for the quarter, which was mainly driven by Android tablets such as Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. On the other side, Windows Phone device managed to fix its position as third potent player in terms of device activation during the last quarter, capturing just 0.5% of overall activation.
Now, enterprises have started relying on the importance of diverse set of mobile products in the organization. Spilling the beans, iOS platform showed off 8.5% Y/Y growth in activation among businesses, up from 71% in Q4 2011 to 77% in Q4 2012. The iPhone 5 managed to hold its position as the most popular device in Q4 2012, representing 32% of all activation. Furthermore, iPad continued to lead overall tablet activation with 93.2% share, followed by Android with 6.8%, despite a jump of 4.1% Y/Y.
The most popular Android tablet among enterprises was Samsung Galaxy Tab, followed by the Motorola Droid Xyboard and Galaxy Note. However, many of us don’t include Samsung Galaxy Note in tablet category; the device has been termed as Phablet, a hybridized smartphone/tablet.
Despite the launch of Samsung Galaxy S3 in second-quarter of the last year, it was still the most popular Android smartphone in Q4 2012. The device alone succeeded to make its presence among 6% of all businesses and professionals during the last quarter. Although the proportion of the Galaxy S3 activation among enterprises was meager compared to Apple’s iPhone 5, but in comparison to other Android smartphones, the activation of the device was tremendous.
Importantly, the device activation (smartphone and tablet) was little higher in the financial service industry during Q4, 2012, compared to business and professional service industry. However, both these industries (together) accounted for more than half of the activation during last quarter. In addition to these, the device activation was also impressive among wholesale & retails, manufacturing and energy & utilities industries. More importantly, majority of security-conscious and highly regulated companies had already adopted Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD). However, still number of organization don’t have any plan to adopt BYOD trend, while the IT organization are willing to allow employees to use the mobile devices and applications what they prefer to use for better productivity.
