Research: Android sizzles, but healthcare favors Apple devices

Results of the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker find Android will capture 39.5 percent global market share this year, and grow another 12 percent or so to 45.4 percent in 2015. That's impressive in the general business market, but here in the healthcare space, new analysis from Bulletin Healthcare shows doctors and other healthcare providers favor Apple's iPhone and iPad over competing platforms--including Android, RIM and Palm--by a considerable margin.

Drawing on the reading habits of more than 550,000 healthcare providers--including more than 400,000 physicians who Bulletin says subscribe to its daily email briefings--the analysis focused on mobile device usage between June 1, 2010 and Feb. 28, 2011. Because the company's reach extends into more than two dozen medical associations each day, an audience company officials peg at roughly half the practicing physicians in the U.S., Bulletin believes it's in a unique position to gauge how physicians access electronically delivered medical information.

By examining the proportion of briefings accessed on mobile devices, analysts were able to determine mobile consumption of medical news climbed by 45 percent between June and February, according to a company statement. That means almost three in 10 healthcare professionals now access the daily medical information contained in Bulletin's briefings on mobile platforms, while seven in 10 continue to use traditional desktop platforms. Not surprisingly, based on current trends, the company expects that ratio to continue to swing strongly in the direction of mobile usage.

“Despite Apple’s longer tenure in the marketplace, we were surprised by the wide margin between Apple devices and others,” Bulletin Healthcare President Bill Mulderry said in a statement. “Combined, the iPhone and iPad grabbed more than 90% share of use in February, while Android saw only 6% use, and other platforms like RIM and Palm barely registered.

"But just as important as Apple’s dominance, according to Mulderry, was the change in share among platforms: iPhone use fell to 79%, from 86% last June, while iPad share nearly doubled to 14% in February, up from 8% in June. Devices based on Google’s Android operating system – which, according to The Nielsen Company, recently surpassed Apple’s offerings in share of the consumer smartphone market – more than doubled their share between June and February."

Mobile device use among different medical specialties also offered a point of interest. Mike Donatello, vice president of research at Bulletin Healthcare parent company Bulletin News, LLC said, "We assumed that specialty-based segments of the medical community might differ in their media habits and use mobile devices to varying degrees. Still, we were surprised to find a threefold range in mobile-device use, between emergency physicians and physician assistants on the high end, and clinical pathologists on the low end."

Looks like we can safely expect this research to prompt deeper studies into the use of mobile devices by healthcare professionals.

Photo obtained from Apple.