You have broken the HN guidelines at least a dozen times in this thread. That's egregious and bannable, but since your comment history is mostly pretty good, we'll chalk it up to going on tilt, a sudden internet malady that afflicts everyone at some point.
Please review and follow the guidelines when commenting here in the future. That means posting civilly and substantively or not at all, and dropping tedious flamewars rather than pursuing them. Comments like "you are either stupid or drunk" are right out.
I guess I need to learn how to step away from these debates even when I really, really know that "the other people" are wrong...
(By the way, just a random thought: I know that you are a moderator because I read it somewhere, but there is nothing in the post or your profile that shows that you are. Perhaps it could be useful to have some sort of optional "show moderator emblem" flag when you post these things, in order to cut down the amount of misunderstadings.)
I'm presuming that you're making the assumption that ads delivered to less affluent people are less valuable (otherwise I have no clue what your post is supposed to mean in context).
That's a fallacy. You can sell one widget for $1M or one million widgets for $1. Very often conversion rates are higher in the latter case.
So even if we take your word that Android users are - worldwide - poorer than iphone users, it doesn't mean anything in the the context of this thread. And as was said, that's why you've been downvoted. Doubling down by calling HN readers stupid (on average) is unlikely to help your cause here.
>I'm presuming that you're making the assumption that ads delivered to less affluent people are less valuable (otherwise I have no clue what your post is supposed to mean in context).
They are, I don't think you understand how modern ad networks work.
Ad networks work on a bidding system when you access a website with ads the ad network uses the profile they have on you which includes your sex, age, "interests", location and also presumed income and pretty much sell you rather than the spot in the banner.
Ad networks charge much higher fees for iOS users than Android users, Android generates 3 times the ad traffic that iOS does but both iOS and Android have the same revenue share as far the global mobile ad market goes.
This means that the average iOS user is worth 3 times than the average Android user as far as advertisement goes.
> Ad networks charge much higher fees for iOS users than Android users, Android generates 3 times the ad traffic that iOS does but both iOS and Android have the same revenue share as far the global mobile ad market goes.
Isn't this exactly what I said? Ultimately the value per user is less useful than the bottom line. It just means that one platform favors a different type of advertiser than the other.
Are most advertisers advertising english language products in english speaking countries? I don't know if this is the case or not, but I would hazard that english language companies demand more ads because they are in more mature markets, and therefore face more competition. In Indonesia, there are many people, but fewer companies advertising there because the market is less mature and consumer choice is more limited/demands less advertising.
Ads sell because they lead to other consumer action. Not for the sake of showing people banners.
Advertisements are very localized some one from Thailand will not see ads in many cases which are aimed at say US buyers neither would Germans, and in most cases not even Brits, Australians or even Canadians.
Exactly. I was responding to the claim that the price of ads was necessarily correlated only the wealth of buyers. It is on average correlated to the expected return a given company expects to get in terms of products sold / conversions.
So I agree with you. If I advertise to sell something in the US (where I am, where my company does business, where I am willing to ship goods, etc.) then ads in Thailand are worth $0. Not because the people there are poor, but because I don't do business in Thailand.
I don't think that anyone argues that it doesn't the value of an ad impression is directly tied to the purchasing power of the audience it's presented to.
That said this is "somewhat" mitigated with local ad partners.
People from Indonesia will receive ads that are provided by local ad partners and while their spot will still be considerably cheaper this is regional pricing rather than pure valuation.
A US user is just as worthless for an Indonesian advertiser as an Indonesian user is to a US advertiser.
Companies have regional pricing to deliver products to markets that cannot afford it movies and games cost considerably less in China, Russia, South America etc. than in N. America or Europe, ads are no exception.
Also whats up with Indonesia? they have a GDP 4 times that of say Ireland, the individual income is still quite low but as far as Indonesia as a country goes they probably have bigger purchasing power than many European nations.
Also it really depends on what you advertise because in many places you can't disregard income inequality if you are talking about countries with ~300M> people they might have more "rich" people than many other smaller European nation so while the average purchasing power within a country isn't that impressive it's actual purchasing power might be quite considerable.
One thing that I've at least noticed on the few ads i did managed to receive while being in China, HK, India and the Philippines is that instead of ads for Spotify, GoPro, or Clash of Clans I've received ads for luxury watches and high end cars more likely than not because due to the income inequality in said countries if you are accessing content from a high end device you aren't just middle class you are very wealthy as many of those countries don't really have a traditional middle class (China has one now and it's one of the biggest consumer of luxury goods in the world).
The Ad market is complicated, I wouldn't just go around sticking prices to users from different countries because it's much harder to estimate that, logic that works in western developed nations quite often fails everywhere else.
I don't think you understand how income inequality works.
If you think it's a problem in the west then you have no idea how it works in developing nations.
The top 20% of the income bracket in Germany makes only 4.2 more on average than the bottom 20% in China it's 20-30, in many African countries it's 40-50.
The average is influenced by outliers, so in cases with high income inequality, it does not necessarily represent central tendency well. In such cases, the median (or other percentiles) can be used for more accurate representations of economic power.
While this is technically true it's not exactly the case.
iOS users tend to be of higher income than Android users within a specific country especially in the west.
When it comes to differences between countries its more about social perspective and Apple's operation within each country.
Apple has a huge share of the mobile market in China because having an Apple device is pretty much mandatory as a status symbol there, in South Korea on the other hand Android dominates at over 85% of the market share because of Samsung and LG.
In many European countries Android has the majority of the market share even in very wealthy ones like Germany and the nordic states because of various political and social views and that Apple hasn't been kind to many of the smaller European countries as far as support goes.
Overall in Europe Android's market share is well above 75% and you can't really call them a poor country, the UK probably has the biggest iOS market share in Europe and that's because Apple has a big operation in the UK and the Brits really want to feel American.
Sure if you bring in countries which are extreme cases like Nigeria you'll get a completely skewed picture but mobile phone manufacturers have special devices for emerging markets which are considerably cheaper in many cases running a very limited version of Android (and no Google Play) or some homebrew OS, there aren't that many iPhones in Nigeria but there aren't that many "Samsung Galaxy Edge S plus 6 Curve's" either...
iOS users tend to be of higher income than Android users within a specific country especially in the west. - Would it not be more true in poorer countries. Like in India it cost around $700+ which attracts higher income people. For the status guys who can't afford, Apple has been selling 2 generation old mobiles for around $300. US and UK mobiles are sold at subsidized rates correct? Would then those users be considered High income users?
They are not sold "subsidised", they are sold in instalments that make your mobile bill higher.
Sure, a $700 device every 24 months is affordable to almost everyone in Western Europe and is not for "high income only", but my interpretation of the point in your parent post is that the people who prefer an iPhone at double the price (or double the monthly instalment as it were) are people who either:
* are rich enough not to care about $300 if there is even a little status/brand cachet/convenience - this then translates to not caring about nickles and dimes on app store purchases either
* are desperate for being perceived as the group above - basically the same people who spend two month's salary on Prada/LV/Chanel handbags
There is socioeconomic divide within developed nations mostly the US as Android has the largest market share in Europe regardless mostly of income.
As far as developing countries go and emerging markets it's not really that relevant either.
If we are talking about really poor countries then Google Play isn't available on the phones there so they generate 0 revenue for Google the Android eco-system is also considerably more limited to the point in which you can pretty much not call it android anymore.
Then explain Android popularity in Europe ;) . 'on average', we are richer then the US ( Belgium and the Netherlands), I also believe your 'facts' are just assumptions based on nothing ( didn't downvote you though :) )
Android has roughly 2 billion users. Europe, which is rich on average, has 0.5 billion people.
Do you now see how it is possible that the average Android user is kinda poor, even though Android is also popular with certain people in Europe, who sometimes are rich?
I don't see how averages are relevant here. Android might have more usage among low-income users in certain countries, but in other countries (e.g. most of Europe) it has a vastly bigger market share, certainly not only because of low-income users. While the average ad impression on an iPhone might generate more revenue (that sounds about right), there are more ad impressions on Android in total, making this irrelevant to the topic of discussion. Additionally, the fact that a) country X is low-income on average and b) country X has a 90% Android market share doesn't have any meaningful effect on the price of ad impressions in high-income country Y.
About 1 billion Android devices were sold in 2014, versus less than 200 million iPhones. Even if we assume your number is correct, that means 250 million Android devices were sold to users in high-income countries. Even if we assume that 50% of those users fall into the low-income range of their respective countries (the "Android users are on a budget"-argument), that's still 125 million Android devices owned by high-income users. The remaining 875 million users surely are gonna generate at least as much revenue as the remaining 75 million iPhone users in this scenario, don't you think?
You're being downvoted, not because we don't like facts, nor because your facts are wrong, nor even because we're stupid. You're being downvoted because what you are saying is completely irrelevant to the topic at hand.
That would be extremely relevant... if you had some facts. A bald assertion gives very little to the discussion. A data set (or a reference to one) would be more useful.
Even more useful would be more relevant data - like Google ad revenue from users of the Android platform, whether or not broken down by country, and whether or not correlated against average income from that country. Anything else is just speculation, no matter how firmly claimed to be fact.
Well, to be fair, Android is extremely successful in poorer (middle income) countries. For example, only 4% of Brazilians and 10% of Russians use iOS compared to 30% of Americans. iPhones are just plain expensive.
There are many very inexpensive Android smartphones, tablets, and wearables, but no such thing for iOS devices, too.
The U.S. is somewhat of an outlier here, e.g. Norway has signifcantly higher per capita income and 75% Android/ 20% iOS market share.
I guess this has more to do with the way mobile phone contracts work in the U.S. AFAIK in the U.S. the real handset cost is hidden behind monthly rates, so most consumers didn't see they paid $700+ for their iPhone. In many other countries (including Norway) consumers have the choice to select handset and contract separately.
Which is few times more expensive than the phone with contract.
I think the biggest difference is Americans willingness to use credit (debt) compared to other countries.
