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I know I’m nitpicking, but this just doesn’t add up: > Nearly half of Google’s search traffic now comes from Apple devices, according to the Justice Department
by zenexer 6y ago
I know I’m nitpicking, but this just doesn’t add up:
> Nearly half of Google’s search traffic now comes from Apple devices, according to the Justice Department
> The Justice Department, which is asking for a court injunction preventing Google from entering into deals like the one it made with Apple, argues that the arrangement has unfairly helped make Google, which handles 92 percent of the world’s internet searches, the center of consumers’ online lives.
What? Worldwide, iOS market share is peanuts compared to Android. Depending on the report, the exact amount varies pretty widely, but nothing ever seems to report more than 18-ish percent worldwide. macOS is negligible. Meanwhile, Android’s market share is enormous.
Android devices alone—worldwide—could easily account for half of Google’s search traffic, especially when you consider countries like India. But the DOJ wants to argue that:
1. Google handles 92% of global search traffic
2. Half of Google’s traffic comes from Apple devices
If we believe that 92% figure, that places a generous upper limit of Google’s search traffic originating from Apple devices at about 20%, far short of “nearly half.”
Look, I hate the monopolistic nature of search just as much as the next person, but can we please double-check that our numbers actually make sense?
- 1over137 6y agoMaybe the USDOJ cares more about US numbers, not worldwide ones? iOS is surely more than 18% in the USA.
- fmajid 6y agoThey do, and also it makes a better case than worldwide where Google is kneecapped by the Chinese government to benefit Bandung, or Russia where Yandex is a strong competitor.
- ocdtrekkie 6y agoPretty sure the "over half" figure refers to traffic in the US, where iOS is around half of mobile devices, unlike the global market where Android has a definite monopoly outside the US. The DOJ legislates largely based on US figures, but noting Google's global power is hard to ignore completely.
- zenexer 6y agoThey said “worldwide” for the other figure and failed to specify the region [in the article] for the other. I think you’re right, but it’s still deceptive, and I’m inclined to believe it was deliberate. Even though the DOJ does seem to clarify in the actual filing, it rubs me the wrong way, and the article summarizing the events is misleading.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y agoIf this is what they meant, then the usefulness of the statement is even more questionable. If more than half of mobile devices are iOS, then your prior expectation would be that more than half of traffic would come from those devices.
- sokoloff 6y agoAndroid devices are so cheap that I have many of them, some dedicated to a single purpose (I have an Android “phone” [without service] and a FireHD that are used only for reading data from my cars’ OBD2 ports and another running my sprinkler system interface) IOS devices are more expensive, so the ones I have actually get used (and most were bought secondhand so don’t contribute to market sales figures). Our household usage and search share is surely 99+% from Apple OSes, while the device share of devices bought new at retail might be only 40% Apple.
- fakedang 6y agoNot an unreasonable conclusion. 1.) Google handles 92% of global search traffic 2.) extrapolate to the US (since it's likely the same, if not higher) : Google handles 92% of US search traffic 3.) Half of Google's US traffic comes from Apple devices (since Apple controls 60% of the smartphone market in the US).
- TheMblabla 6y agoNot all of google's us traffic is from smartphones though
- Spooky23 6y agoAndroid in the US is different. iOS really dominates — I’d guess that half of the Android users get pushed by a salesman at a carrier store, who get spiffed by different companies. Many only buy a smartphone because they are unaware flip phones still exist!
- Someone 6y agoReading https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/doj-google-suit/c21c1a2b24b81aa1/full.pdf https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/doj-google-suit/c21c1..., the missing part seems to be “of mobile device usage, in the USA”. It says: “In the United States, Apple iOS devices — those running on Apple’s proprietary mobile operating system account for roughly 60 percent of mobile-device usage. Apple’s is a closed ecosystem; Apple does not license iOS to third-party mobile device manufacturers. Another roughly 40 percent of mobile-device usage comes from devices that use Android, an open-source mobile operating system controlled by Google. Unlike iOS, Android is licensable, which means third-party mobile device manufacturers can use it as the operating system for their devices. All other mobile operating systems, combined account for less than one percent of mobile device usage in the United States.” (Of course, whether that’s correct is a different question from whether that’s what the DoJ claims, but it doesn’t seem farfetched to me that it is correct, too)
- mroche 6y agoAt least one aggregator of this kind of information has the 60/40 metric as pretty much spot on, going from Sept. 2019 to Sept. 2020. https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile-tablet/united-states-of-america/#monthly-201909-202009 https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/mobile-tablet/uni... Mobile and Mobile/Tablet are pretty much the same, and Tablet only giving Apple a few percentage points advantage further (~65%).
- crazygringo 6y agoSeriously, I think the Justice Department is missing some qualifiers. I'd assume it's referring to both only US traffic and only mobile traffic. Because if you make it worldwide or include desktops/laptops, it's laughable.
- sampsonitify 6y agoMac Os X on desktop seems < 20%[1], so hard to imagine how overall it could hit that figure. [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-st...
- pilsetnieks 6y agoBut the DOJ isn't missing anything, it's the Times that's missing them, as someone (literally named someone) pointed out: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24889252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24889252
- eli 6y agoPeople with iPhones use their phones more than people with Android.
- fmajid 6y agoAnd are a way, way more attractive demographic for advertisers. I knew about the deal, but until the House report I didn’t realize it made up such a high proportion of Apple’s profits (14 to 21%). Knowing Apple, they must be driving a hard bargain.
- drivingmenuts 6y agoApple is the new old IBM without all the warmth and personability, but ten times the marketing skills.
- xenadu02 6y agoI have no knowledge of any of this but the report doesn't either. It states those are estimated numbers culled from the web. AFAIK there is no actual public info on what the dollar amount is (and I certainly don't know what it is). I do see everyone running with those numbers as if they were fact though. That's the danger of using such made up numbers in the report: everyone else repeats them as if they were fact even when the report says they don't know.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago> But the DOJ wants to argue that No. That's NOT what the DOJ wants to argue. Yes, the complaint itself does refer to market share, but it doesn't specifically refer to "92 percent of the world's internet searches". In fact, the complaint refers to market share within the United States, since that's geographically relevant to the case. What happens elsewhere isn't. [1] [1] https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/GOOGLEANTITRUST_10-20-20.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/GOOGLEANTITRUST... This is what the NYTimes wrote: > The Justice Department, which is asking for a court injunction preventing Google from entering into deals like the one it made with Apple, argues that the arrangement has unfairly helped make Google, which handles 92 percent of the world’s internet searches, the center of consumers’ online lives. 92 percent links to a report by statcounter.com [2]. That's the NYTimes making a claim about Google's market share and linking to a source. If you read the sentence even more carefully, you'll see the word "which" appear twice. "Which" grammatically denotes a non-defining clause from the perspective of the writer. It's information that you could remove without altering the core of the sentence: [3] "The Justice Department argues that the arrangement has unfairly helped make Google the center of consumers’ online lives" More importantly, "which" is gramatically used from the perspective of the writer to give a bit of non-essential background to the sentence. And so, what is absolutely NOT being said here, is that the DOJ claims that Google holds a 92 percent market share. [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/technology/apple-google-search-antitrust.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/technology/apple-google-s... [3] https://www.grammarly.com/blog/which-vs-that/ https://www.grammarly.com/blog/which-vs-that/
- pessimizer 6y agoThe NYT constantly embellishes like this, it's a really shitty part of its style. If you want to add information, don't infix it within a description of the Justice Department's argument. At least put the editorial in a different paragraph, if not the editorial section.
- CaptArmchair 6y agoThat sentence is grammatically entirely correct, neither is it misleading. I don't see how it embellishes the core meaning of the phrase. Is it harder to read with two non-defining clauses? That's something else.
- cwp 6y agoIs it really that hard to believe that iOS users do more searches than Android users?
- Kiro 6y agoYes, why try to justify such an obviously incorrect statement? It's clear that the only reasonable explanation is that it is US traffic only where iOS indeed has over 50% market share.
- viktorcode 6y agoYou are conflating market share with internet usage share.
- protomyth 6y agoYeah. Go to Walmart and look at the cellphones in green boxes that get sold for non-contract usage. They are all Android and most will be used for messages and calls. They are absolutely horrific to use for web browsing. Maybe in a couple of generations that will change.
- heavyset_go 6y ago52.4% of the mobile market in the US belongs to iOS[1], and 47% to Android. [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held-by-smartphone-platforms-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/266572/market-share-held...
- kovek 6y agoI’m really confused by what I’m reading on this page. Can someone clarify the different between these two? Quoting: > Apple iOS continues to hold its large share of the smartphone operating systems’ market within the United States, claiming more than half of the market in May 2020. > ... > Android still the one to catch > Android, however, still holds the largest share of the United States smartphone operating systems’ market and has done for many year. So this is about the smartphone operating systems, in the united states. Apple has “more than half of the market”, and Android has “the largest share”. How are both statements possibly true?
- 411111111111111 6y agoThe first number is about sold devices in may, the later is about all devices in use no matter when they were bought
- hamburglar 6y agooff-topic, but if "username checks out" style posts were appropriate here, this would be a good place for one. :D
- vermilingua 6y agoYou’re right, they’re not appropriate here.
- sandworm101 6y ago>> claiming more than half of the market in May 2020. Market share /= number of devices. Apple owns the "market", ie the money. Apple owners spend vastly more on their OS (via playstore). Android might be running on vastly more devices, but the people who matter, the rich people with money to spend on camera apps, spend that money via iPhones. We live in a world where whales matter more than customers. The legions of android users who use their phones to make phonecalls, as internet browsers, and as navigational tools ... they don't matter as much as any single iPhone user who regularly drops a few hundred every month on eye candy iPhone backgrounds.
- KorematsuFred 6y ago> preventing Google from entering into deals like the one it made with Apple, Be careful what you ask for. If you make such deals illegal, Apple will have to set Google as search engine for FREE thus benefiting Google. As a non-murican it baffles me that US government will try to hurt its own successful companies in this fashion which smells of incompetence and political vendetta rather than genuine concern for the health of search ecosystem.
- FpUser 6y agoCompanies like Google are starting to have way too much influence on government. Government does not like it at all so they'll take measures to curb the influence one or the other way.
- warrenq 6y agocan you give me one example of Google having influence over Government?
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoPresumably it would only be Google prevented from entering into such agreements, since nobody else has a dominant market position in search. The interesting question then would be whether Apple would take somebody else's money and change the default search engine on their devices. Which might net them almost as much money, but might also irritate a lot of their users if the highest bidder isn't as good of a search engine.
- cortesoft 6y agoI assume since this is a US case, they only care about percentages of US searches.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nathanvanfleet 6y agoI'm not sure the American DOJ considers web traffic in India
- ogre_codes 6y ago> Google handles 92% of global search traffic The justice department doesn't care who handles search traffic in Cambodia, Canada, or Taiwan. They are only interested in US based search traffic where iOS has 50%+ market share.