Mobile search has been the most talked about subject in the world of digital marketing in 2015, particularly with Google’s latest mobile friendly update supposedly meaning big things for organic ranking (although see our verdict for Mobilegeddon for our thoughts on the matter).

Webmasters and digital agencies have kept an eye on Google analytics to understand mobile searches and this has brought up an interesting observation. Smartphone sales do not actually match up with data from Google analytics; that is, the number of branded phones bought does not correlate with the number of mobile searches conducted on that particular brand.

Top seller

According to the 2015 International Data Corporation report, Samsung has consistently been the highest selling smartphone brand since 2012.

Both images from International Data Corporation.

It would therefore make sense that Samsung would be the top used device for mobile searchers, reflecting in Google Analytics for websites across the globe. However, looking at Google Analytics from various markets over the past 30 days shows that this assumption is in fact wrong.

Using the following Google Analytics data, we can in fact see that mobile searches are most commonly conducted on Apple phones:

Mobile Phone Sector

Mobile searches:

1. Apple – 48.94%
2. Samsung – 27.04%

iGaming Sector

Mobile searches:

1. Apple – 54.79%
2. Samsung – 19.92%

Jewellery Sector

Mobile searches:

1. Apple – 68.53%
2. Samsung – 16.00%

DIY Sector

Mobile searches:

1. Apple – 64.54%
2. Samsung – 16.73%

These data sets consistently show that search queries from Apple devices are massively dominating Samsung when it comes to mobile search users.

While this contradicts the volume of Samsung sales compared to Apple sales found in the International Corporation Data report, there are several reasons why we might find this trend.

• Samsung have a larger coverage in emerging markets, such as developing countries with less internet connection and therefore mobile searches.
• Apple users may be more likely to use the internet on their phone than Samsung (and Android) users. This theory has also been suggested by Chitika in response to similar mobile search comparisons found in 2014 (read more here).

The end of a reign for Samsung?

Recently, global sales data (as reported by Reuters for The Telegraph) has recently shown that Apple sales are beginning to overtake Samsung;

Apple sold the most number of smartphones globally in the fourth quarter, overtaking Samsung for the first time since 2011.

Apple’s smartphones sales jumped about 49pc in the fourth quarter, according to Gartner. In contrast, Samsung, the market dominator since 2011, recorded a nearly 12pc fall.

Apple sold 74.83m smartphones worldwide, ahead of the 73.03m phones sold by Samsung.

 

A quick look on Google Trends backs this change in interest when comparing the two giant corporations’ latest releases:

Samsung usually dominates the sales due to the large amount of models available, ensuring they cater for a range of prices and requirements. Apple’s sudden overtake could easily spell big trouble for Samsung, particularly with their latest release spiking little interest.