We are often asked to what proportion the various mobile operating systems are represented by our users. The last statistic is nearly one year old, so it’s now time for an update. Below is the evolution of the various mobile platforms at barcoo:

You will have noticed the striking Samsung bada dent in the middle of last year. This is due to the fact that we supported bada from the start, that the Samsung devices sold well and that their app store was pretty empty. Therefore users downloaded most of the few apps available to them in the store. This temporary high market share could not be kept indefinitely. With a current overall market share of 5%, but nonetheless increasing steadily, the bada platform should still remain of interest to some app developers.

Nokia Symbian is a tragedy (see analysis by Tomi Ahonen). From August 31st, barcoo will cease supporting Nokia Symbian. It was a very painful decision: we’ve invested again and again in this platform, but now it’s enough. It’s all over.

In the graph, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry are hardly to be seen. Here also, because of the continued lack of use, we have been compelled to discontinue support for these platforms. We are currently not planning any WP7 or webOS version either. Anyone interested in detailed statistics will find the historical data in Google Docs.

The evolution of the current market share, compared to the average for 2010:

No surprises. It should be quite clear where we’re heading. Or not? Nokia will be (most likely) purchased soon. A lot is possible then: Maybe MeeGo after all? Exciting.

As we have mentioned, our goal is to offer the award-winning barcoo transparency to as many consumers as possible.
No matter what smartphone, it should be possible to access green, price and background information everywhere you want.

However, lately we have gotten a little behind on the promise concerning our loyal Nokia customers – but today that will change: A new touch-enabled barcoo version for Nokia 5800 (Express Music), N97, N97 mini and other S60 5th edition devices can be download for free from Nokia Ovi Store.

The new version speeds up scanning and simplifies the user experience. Price- and product information, for example food traffic light and sustainability information, and everything else are now shown directly in the app. Gone are the days of having to fiddle with jumping between the built-in browser and the scanner.

We are committed to further invest into the Nokia platform and are looking into specifically supporting the upcoming Symbian^3 devices such as the Nokia N8 and C7.

Business partners often ask us how the different mobile phone platforms perform on our service. Our strategy was and will be to deliver our services on any platform that is relevant.  Currently that would encompass seven platforms (although some primarily are kept for historical reasons). Through having more than one million installations, the numbers should be relatively representative (at least for Germany).  One cannot keep them uncommented, but when we share the distribution, we gladly share it with you.

Here is the distribution of scans using barcoo in September 2010:

Samsumg bada is extremely prominent. The success we experienced with the launch of barcoo on bada at the beginning of August nearly knocked our socks off. Certainly this is due to Samsung Apps not bustling with as many other high quality apps like other app directories. We are excited to see how this plattform will continue to develop.

Android continues to become stronger with every month and is slowly, but surely,  taking away market shares from the other players. We have had the advantage to be present on the German Android market from Day One in Germany and therefore to have obtained a dream position in this (not very agile) market.  We have neglected the Nokia Symbian platform but we are hoping it’s market share will rise again as soon as our new release (1.5 years after the last one) goes live at the Ovi Store. The new release will not only support more current models but will also greatly improve the user experience.

So much for the lastest information from barcoo metrics.