SurveyMonkey: Microsoft Mobile Office App Usage Crushed by Google

Shocker, isn't it?

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Earlier this week SurveyMonkey released information from its Intelligence division that provides some insight into how many people are using Microsoft Office apps on mobile devices in comparison to Google. While I expected the numbers to heavily lean towards Google, what I saw was staggering.

According to SurveyMonkey’s research collected through March 2016, Microsoft only carries an eighth of the mobile market for productivity applications compared to Google. And the numbers are unfortunately even worse for Microsoft when each app is compared separately.

E-mail in particular suffers greatly with Google’s Gmail and Inbox applications dominating over Microsoft’s Outlook usage by having nineteen times the number of users compared to Outlook. File storage and Document writing round out the top 3 productivity apps, again with Google’s base much higher than Microsoft’s. Now part of this can be attributed to the fact that many OEMs like Samsung and LG install the Google apps as part of the base package. SurveyMonkey noted:

“Ironically, Microsoft Office is being thwarted by the same structural distribution disadvantages on mobile (Google’s ownership of Android) that its competitors suffered on desktop.”

The European Union agrees with this sentiment as the use of Google apps on Android is at the center of the antitrust charges by the EU against Google. The results also do not factor in stock e-mail apps, which often include support for Gmail, Exchange, POP3 and IMAP and may be used in conjunction with a provider’s supplied app.

Also not considered are note applications that are often supplied by the OEM and may be used more than a separate app like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. As a result this picture may not be a complete look at the install base and use of productivity applications in the mobile ecosystem.

Readers interested in seeing the full article can head over to SurveyMonkey to read the details.

After seeing these results do you agree with SurveyMonkey’s assessment? Does this perhaps change your view on how the EU is handling the antitrust charges against Google? Want to talk about something else from the article? Sound off in the comments below!