Even fewer had Android web apps, which give mobile web visitors a customized Android “App-like” experience through the mobile browser, even if they choose not to download an App.

Why are travel suppliers not embracing Android?

There’s gold in those hills

On 29 June, 2007 the iPhone launched and the world of mobile changed. The iPhone was beautiful, slick, and undeniably hip. The high retail price meant that early iPhone users were primarily affluent professionals, and the iPhone app market represented a fantastic new channel to reach out and engage a valuable market segment. The gold rush was on.

Airlines started to publish iPhone Apps in mid 2008 and major hotel chains followed suit in the spring of 2009. There are currently more than 330,000 Apps available for download, approximately 18,000 of those are travel Apps. Just last week total downloads crossed the 10 billion mark.

Enter the Robots

To grow its mobile revenues Google wanted to ensure that mobile browsing, and most importantly, mobile search was “Google friendly”. In 2005 Google acquired Android Inc., a small mobile OS start-up based in Palo Alto. The rest, as they say, is history. Android evolved into an open source mobile operating system, available for free to any handset manufacturer, but designed to work seamlessly with Google services. The first commercially available Android phone was released in September 2008. The Android Market App store opened its virtual doors in October, and developers started to publish Android Apps almost immediately.

2011 – The year of the Robots?

Taking on iPhone was never going to be easy, but Androids’ progress has been remarkable. Mobile analytics firm Flurry.comestimates that the number of active Android devices has increased by 891% since the beginning of 2009. There are approximately 60 million Android devices worldwide (compared to ~90 million iPhones and ~55 million BlackBerry devices).

9 million Androids were activated in December 2010 alone!

Many analysts predict that 2011 will see Android become the dominant smartphone platform. Recent market activity like Amazon’s Android market announcement, and the unveiling of 15 new Android tablets and at least 6 new Android smartphones at this year’sconsumer electronics show suggest that analysts may well be right.

Even if it takes until 2012 or 2013 for the robots to come out on top, it’s clear that it is time to pay attention to Android.

Android Demographics – Robots go mainstream

The belief that Android is simply the phone for geeks and hackers may spring from seeds of truth. While Google aggressively courted developers first, Apple reached out to consumers directly.

The stereotypes abound, but the data tells another story.

(Speaking of stereotypes, here’s a great cartoon having a laugh at how iPhone, Android and BlackBerry users view one another.)

Both Mobiclix and Nielsen have conducted surveys to examine Android users. The demographics describe a valuable market – a young, affluent, committed user base.

• Android users are slightly younger than iPhone users. 60% are under 34, another 30% are 34-49.
• 28% of Android users have incomes over 100k USD/year and 43% earn more than 70k a year. (Age is a prime determinant of income and education, so it’s reasonable to assume that as the Android user base ages, its collective income will increase.)
• 46% of Android users are male. An almost even match – 45% of iPhone users are male.
• 45% of Android users are first-time smartphone owners. 
• Android and iPhone users have very similar usage patterns, including time spent browsing the mobile web
• 70% of Android users want their next phone to be another Android.

Make the robots work for you

A successful mobile strategy depends on understanding your target audience, and implementing mobile tools and applications that directly meet their needs. At MTT we encourage all of our customers to start with a strong mobile web presence optimized for all handsets, and build out from there. The mobile web should come first, but feature rich web and downloadable Apps have a key place in a robust mobile strategy.

However, our research and experience tells us that many travel suppliers are ignoring Android, at their peril, we think.

After all, can 60 million Android users be wrong?