Apple dominated mobility among SMBs in 2014; Samsung made slight gains
— With data from more than 60,000 of its business customers, Intermedia sheds new light on the Apple vs. Android rivalry in its “2015 Small + Medium Business Mobile Trends Report”
READING, England, Jan. 28, 2015 – iPhones and iPads accounted for 68 percent of the 446,752 mobile devices newly activated on Intermedia’s network in 2014, according to the findings of Intermedia’s “2015 Small + Medium Business Mobile Trends Report.” Intermedia is the world’s largest independent provider of Hosted Microsoft Exchange.
Android devices followed a distant second with 26 percent of activations. Among Android vendors, Samsung increased its share of activations on Intermedia networks from 16.7 percent in 2014, up from 14.9 percent in 2013.
Rather than tempting business users to abandon Apple, Samsung’s growth appears to have come at the expense of other Android device manufacturers—most notably Motorola, which dropped to 2.8 percent of 2014 activations from 5.6 percent in 2013.
“While the conventional wisdom is that Android has greater market share, Apple has accounted for approximately two-thirds of all mobile devices activated by Intermedia’s users for four years running,” said Michael Gold, president of Intermedia. “Many Intermedia customers use their smartphones and tablets as their primary business tools. Intermedia hopes this insight into SMB user preferences will help IT decision makers as they plan for future user productivity and system scalability.”
Intermedia’s full report—including a sharable infographic—is available at www.intermedia.co.uk/mobiletrends
Additional 2014 trends and developments that are detailed in the report include:
- The launch of the iPhone 6/6 Plus was nearly 50 percent bigger on Intermedia’s network than the launch of the iPhone 5s/5c
- 76 percent of the users who activated the new iPhone chose the iPhone 6 over the iPhone 6 Plus
- The share of iPads among all devices activated on Intermedia’s network shrank from 16.2 percent in 2013 to 13.7 percent in 2014
Report Methodology
The findings of this report are derived from Intermedia’s non-personally identifiable log of ActiveSync activations over time. Intermedia’s customers use ActiveSync technology to sync mobile devices to their Hosted Microsoft Exchange email account.
In addition to providing many other essential business solutions, Intermedia ranks as the largest independent provider of cloud-based Microsoft Hosted Exchange business email. Intermedia is therefore well positioned to report on certain business mobility trends, as the only Hosted Exchange provider to possess this volume of data without affiliation to any particular device, vendor or mobile operating system.
About Intermedia
Intermedia is a one-stop shop for cloud business applications. Its Office in the Cloud™ suite integrates the essential IT services that SMBs need to do business, including email, voice, file syncing and sharing, conferencing, instant messaging, identity and access management, mobility, security and archiving. Office in the Cloud goes beyond unified communications to encompass a wide breadth of fundamental IT services, delivered by a single provider.
Think of Office in the Cloud as your “Business Cloud Platform.” Intermedia’s services are integrated into its HostPilot® Control Panel. This means you have just one login, one password, one bill and one source of support—which makes the cloud easier to use and more efficient to manage. Intermedia further streamlines the experience by offering enterprise-class security, a 99.999% uptime service level agreement and 24/7 phone support with typical hold times of less than 60 seconds.
Intermedia serves over 60,000 businesses and has more than 5,000 active partners, including VARs, MSPs, telcos and cable companies. Its award-winning Partner Program lets partners sell under their own brand with control over billing, pricing and other key elements of their customer relationships. Intermedia is the world’s largest independent provider of hosted Exchange.
Intermedia has over 600 employees worldwide who manage numerous datacenters to power its Office in the Cloud—and who work to deliver customers and partners Intermedia’s Worry-Free Experience™.
