Finding Their Way: How Maps Have Become an Increasingly Important Source of Value - and Competition - for Apple and Google
Figuring out where you are is an increasingly valuable source of information for Apple, Google and their competitors.
Not just where you have been, but where you have been and where you might be headed are matters of intense interest - and potential profit.
The reason is that location and direction are increasingly tied to advertising revenue and projected sales, both of which contribute to financial performance for the companies that provide the platforms, the services and the prospective sources of sales. So, it is also important that these companies get the mapping right.
Apple suffered a hugely embarrassing loss of reputation when its mapping software failed a year ago. Failed in that it could not be relied upon until fixes were devised. But as the following article explains that loss of prestige may have been less consequential in the long term than the loss of access that Google may have suffered by being disconnected from that source. The implication is that mapping matters, but so does the scale of the network on which the information being acquired and provided. Direction is no longer sufficient; the number and type of people seeking that information now influences the degree to which the basic data confers value. JL
Charles Arthur reports in The Guardian:
Map data is hugely valuable both for Apple and Google in monitoring traffic
flows to offer information on traffic jams, and determining user location, which
is generally fed back anonymously to the relevant companies. Google also uses it
to provide location-related advertising on its search and maps - an increasingly
important source of income as search revenue from desktop sites flattens. Apple's maps have turned out to be a hit with iPhone and iPad users in the US
- despite the roasting that they were given when they first appeared in
September 2012.
But Google - which was kicked off the iPhone after it refused to give Apple
access to its voice-driven turn-by-turn map navigation - has lost nearly 23m
mobile users in the US as a result.
That is a huge fall against the 81m Google Maps mobile users it had there at
its peak in September last year, according to ComScore, a market research
company, which produced the figures from regular polls of thousand of users.
The introduction of
Apple's own maps with its iOS 6 software in September 2012 caused a furore after
it emerged that they were littered
with errors. A location in Ireland named "Airfield" was marked as an
airport, Paddington station had vanished, and Helsinki railway station was - it
seemed - a park. The company was panned, and chief executive Tim Cook made
a public apology.
But a year on, a total of
35m iPhone owners in the US used Apple's maps during September 2013, according
to ComScore, compared to a total of 58.7m Google Maps users across the
iPhone and Android base.
Of those, about 6m used Google Maps on the iPhone, according to calculations
by the Guardian based on figures from ComScore. That includes 2m iPhone users
who have not or cannot upgrade to iOS 6, according to data from MixPanel.
That suggests Google's efforts to offer a stand-alone app since December have
gained little traction with iPhone users.
"Google has lost access to a very, very important data channel in the North
American market," commented Ben Wood, mobile analyst for CCS Insight, a research
company based in London. "But Apple was adamant that it wasn't going to give up
on doing its own maps, even when it had problems. This is a war of
attrition."
European and other regional data for maps use is not available, but is
expected to mirror that found in the US.
Google has been aggressively
pushing adverts into its maps app on all platforms since August.
For Apple, the growth in maps users is important so that it can improve its
own traffic and other data relating to phone signal strength. Apple, however, is
a relative minnow in location-based advertising, and has principally focussed on
using the data for traffic forecasts for drivers.
The break with the iPhone
came when Apple became frustrated in late 2009 by Google's refusal to provide
turn-by-turn navigation for maps on the iPhone - a feature which was available
on Google's own Android, and which is hugely useful for car drivers. "They broke
their promise," one Apple executive told the Guardian. Google also wanted to
collect more data from Apple users via maps, such as through its Latitude
product, and held off offering vector graphics (which store data more
efficiently, and can work
offline). That sparked Apple's decision to develop its own maps offering,
licensing data from TomTom and other providers.
But the introduction was a
public relations fiasco, and after the initial criticism, Cook fired
Scott Forstall, the head of the iPhone software team, and maps
chief Richard Williamson soon afterwards.
In his apology, Cook urged
people to download alternative maps apps - though Google did not then have one
available for the iPhone. When it came
out in December, it shot to the top of the download charts, with 10m
downloads within 48 hours.
Default behaviour
ComScore's data suggests though that comparatively few iPhone owners actually
take the trouble to use Google's maps rather than Apple's - in part because
Apple's maps are the default for any driving directions or map-related search on
iOS 6 and above. According
to ComScore, in September 2012 - just ahead of the introduction of Apple
Maps - there were a total of 81.1m users of Google Maps, out of a total of
103.6m iPhones and Android phones users.
But a year later, its
smartphone data says that the total number of Google Maps users is much
lower, at 43% of iPhone and Android users - or 58.7m, despite the user base
growing to 136.7m.
"For the average user, even if they have the Google Maps app, they don't use
it a lot," said Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at ComScore. "In a narrow window
[after the iOS app download became available] I'm sure there was a ton of
activity, but only for a short period."
ComScore's data shows that in September 2013, 35m used Apple's maps at least
once during the month, out of a total iPhone population of 60.1m. The 58% usage
on the iPhone is reckoned to reflect the growing number of younger users who do
not use mapping services; the proportion of iPhone users who use any mapping
service, including Google's, has been dropping since April 2012, according to
ComScore's data.
Wood said: "The thing is, on an iPhone all roads lead to Apple's maps.
They're putting this front and centre for users, and getting more confident."
For Google, he said, "They're very fortunate that Android is a big source of
data - they will be very relieved at that." He cautioned that US iPhone users
might be more eager to use Apple's maps because there seem to be fewer errors
there compared to other regions, including Europe.
Google told the Guardian: "We’re not currently sharing details on the number
of downloads. While we can’t disclose specific performance metrics, we’re
pleased with the product and user feedback has been positive." Calculating the data
According to ComScore, which collects data from tens of thousands of US
smartphone users every month, in September 2012 there were 81.1m users of Google
Maps in total across the 103.6m users of iPhones and Android
smartphones. Facebook v Google Maps use in the US in 2012,
millions of users. The number of Google Maps users dips in September as iOS 6 is
rolled out. Photograph: /PR/ComScore
But as iOS 6 began to roll out, and introduced Apple's maps as the default,
the number using Google Maps dropped precipitously, even as the number of
iPhones and Android phones began rising. (ComScore does not measure usage on
Windows Phone or BlackBerry, which comprise only about 10% of smartphones in use
in the US.) By December 2012, even though the base of iPhones and Android phones
had grown to 112.9m - up 9.3m - the total number across both platforms using
Google Maps on mobile at least once a month had dropped, to 74.4m.
Latest figures from ComScore, published for September 2013, say that the
total number of iPhones and Android phones in the US has grown to 136.7m, the
number who used the Google Maps app has kept dropping - down to 58.8m - while
the number of Apple Maps users stands at 35m out of a total iPhone population of
60.1m.
The picture is made more
complicated because there are differing rates of usage of maps between the two
platforms - and it has changed over the measurement period. In April 2012, ComScore was quoted
saying that in the US there were 31.3m iPhone users of Google Maps, and
38.2m users on Android (from a collective base of 88.4m devices, implying a 78%
usage rate).
It also noted that iOS users tended to use maps more often - 9.7m used it
once a day, against 7.2m for Android. In addition, iPhone users spent longer on
maps than Android users - 75.5 minutes per month, against 56.2 minutes for
Android.
But since then, according to ComScore, the usage rates for maps has altered,
particularly as the iPhone has gained a younger base. According to Lipsman, by
September 2013 "overall map usage is [now] a bit higher on Android (79% of
users) than on iPhone (72% of users)."
Modelling that change in users suggests that on the iPhone, there are about
43.2m maps users in all - which would break down to 35m using Apple's maps, and
another 8.3m who use Google's maps at least once a month.
Separate data from Mixpanel for the US supplied to the Guardian suggests
though that there are about 2m iPhone owners in the US who have not upgraded
their phones to iOS 6, and so cannot use Apple's maps.
That means that Google has gone from having at least 31m users on the iPhone
in April 2012 - and perhaps as many as 35m in September 2012, based on a model
using a sliding scale of maps ownership - to around 6.3m who are using it
monthly on iOS 6 and above. Update: one query that has been raised is about Waze, a
traffic app which was bought in June 2013 by Google. Might US iPhone users be
using Waze in preference to Apple Maps - but in effect benefiting Google?
ComScore's figures do not show Waze in the top 15 mobile apps in September
2013, for which the smallest share is 18.0% (for Facebook Messenger). That would
suggest Waze was used by fewer than 24.6m people in the US in that month (18% of
136.7m base). Nor does Waze appear in ComScore's figures for July or August, the
months in which maps use is highest because Americans travel (often by road) for
holidays.
Worldwide, Waze's user
base was "nearly 50m" in July 2013, according
to Yahoo. That's a worldwide figure, and includes not just iPhones and
Android (for which a client has been available since
2009), but also BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, Symbian and
Maemo. Without data from the company, it's impossible to know how many users
Waze has on the iPhone in the US, since there's no indication of the platform or
geographical split for this Israel-based company. But it seems unlikely that the
loss of iPhone users of Google Maps has been made up by users of
Waze.
As a Partner and Co-Founder of Predictiv and PredictivAsia, Jon specializes in management performance and organizational effectiveness for both domestic and international clients. He is an editor and author whose works include Invisible Advantage: How Intangilbles are Driving Business Performance. Learn more...
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