by Luke Wroblewski December 3, 2012

Google's Android operating system runs on 75% of the smartphones shipped in the third quarter of 2012. Apple's iOS is second with 15% marketshare. So Android should be dominating smartphone use across the board right? Well, no. Welcome to the Android engagement mystery.

E-Commerce

Android went from 1.43% of Black Friday shopping traffic in 2010 to 4.92% in 2012. In same time iOS went from 3.85% to 18.46%. (source)

Apple's iOS contributed to 18.7% of online shopping and Android contributed just 5.5%. (source)

iPhone users are about three times more engaged in shopping with their devices than Android users. Two years ago the ratio was two to one. (source)

The pattern is pretty clear with respect to Android: engagement is down as ownership is up. (source)

Web Browsing

On non-cellular networks, Mobile Safari accounts for 67% of mobile browser activity. Android WebKit’s share is 18%. (source)

52% of tablet owners in the US say they own an iPad, 48% say they own an Android device. (source)

But the iPad accounts for over 90% of all tablet web traffic. (source)

Digital Magazines

Of all the downloads of Adobe digital magazines, a total of 3% were on Android. The remaining 97% came from iOS. (source)

What's responsible for lower Android engagement across the board? Is the market situation in China partly to blame? Or something else?