Chart by The Mac Observer from data provided by Intermedia
Right off the bat, we’re going to focus on two caveats: The first is that Intermedia claims to be the world’s largest Microsoft Exchange hosting provider with over 320,000 “premium hosted” corporate accounts, but this data is still limited to only its clients. The second major caveat is that BlackBerry deployment is not included in this data because BlackBerry devices connect to Microsoft Exchange services natively, and do not go through ActiveSync. BlackBerry still dominates the Enterprise space (for now).
That said, the company’s data strongly suggests that Apple is enjoying much stronger success in the Enterprise space in terms of market share than it is in the consumer space.
“Android market share and popularity among consumers continues to climb, but business professionals generally prefer the iPhone,” Intermedia wrote in its report. “This is in stark contrast to recent reports showing Android market share beating iPhone.”
Long term Apple watchers and Mac fans will immediately recognize this as almost exactly the opposite of Apple’s other major product line, the Mac. In the computer market, Apple has always had far more success in the consumer space than it has in the enterprise market.
When it comes to tablets, Apple’s domination in Intermedia’s microcosm is even more crushing. The firm said that 99.8% of all tablets that have been activated under the company’s management are iPads, with a token smidgen of Android tablets taking up the rest.
Chart by The Mac Observer from data provided by Intermedia
[Editor’s Note: we had to skew the perspective of this chart for the three Android devices to be visible.]
While sales data for Android tablets has been vague and mixed, Intermedia’s data shows that the iPad entirely owns the media tablet market in the enterprise. The company said that iPad deployment is growing from 300 activations per month to 900 in March and more than 1,200 in April.
Android growth in the rest of the market has been steadily accelerating faster than iPhone, as both platforms eat up marker share from other operating systems, but Intermedia said that iPhones continue to outpace Android smartphones with its customers. In April, Intermedia said that 64% of new device activations were iPhones, with 33% being Android and the rest falling under the “Other” category, which is extra bad news for Microsoft’s own Windows 7 platform.
Chart by The Mac Observer from data provided by Intermedia
This data demonstrates that the iPhone’s dominance in Intermedia’s data isn’t the product of the device’s headstart in the smartphone business, but rather the result of ongoing customer choice. At the same time, this data shows that Android is in the process of eating much of the shared currently owned by the “Other” category.