Palm Inc.’s and Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Mobile operating systems lost ground on independent mobile aggregator Myxer’s Web site in 2009, giving up a combined 24% of the smartphone traffic on the site to Research in Motion Ltd., Android and Apple Inc.’s iPhone OSes.
Myxer, which has been selling ringtones, wallpapers and other content since 2005, released its inaugural report on user behavior on its site in order to help the mobile content community follow industry trends. Myxer has seen a lot of content being downloaded by Android users even though the OS has only been on the market a short time, said Steve Spiro, VP of marketing at the company. Android and iPhone users downloaded 7 million pieces of content from Myxer in the last three months of 2009. Those 7 million downloads only accounted for 3% of all content downloaded, but were the fastest-growing OSes on the site. 
Android OS users grew by 350% from December 2008 to December 2009, while iPhone users grew 170%. Myxer delivered seven times more content to Android users than iPhone users. Downloading content from Myxer takes more steps because users have to download the content first to their computers and then port to iTunes to sync, Spiro said. Apple sells ringtones, while Myxer offers free and for-sale ringtones as part of its catalog of 2.5 million pieces of content. Spiro said 85% of Myxer downloads are ringtones. Hip-hop/R&B remains the top genre of ringtone downloads for both Android and iPhone users, but iPhone users are more diverse in their musical tastes; 77% of Android users downloaded hip-hop tunes compared to 47% of iPhone users. The average Android user visiting Myxer’s Web site downloaded eight pieces of content in December, while the average iPhone user downloaded four pieces of content.
Curve dominates
Despite the growing popularity of smartphones that use the Android or Mac OSes, RIM’s BlackBerry OS remains the No. 1 smartphone OS on the site, accounting for 67% of smartphone visits. Myxer’s demographics are skewed fairly young, Spriro said; between 40% and 45% of visitors to the site are between 18- to 24-years old, and another 20% are between 13- and 17-years old. BlackBerry’s Curve users make up the largest category of visits to the site, at nearly 9%. Wireless carriers are often promoting the Curve at great discounts, including free, which could make them appealing to the younger demographic. Myxer expects RIM to continue to be the dominant handset maker to the site in 2010, Spriro said. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. handsets have grown in popularity, having eight phones in the top 20 to visit Myxer.com.
Myxer said its data set covers about 1 billion downloads and 30 million unique visitors. The company sees about 85 million downloads a month, most of them being ringtones, Spiro said. While paying for ringtones has declined in recent years, people are still interested in ringtones, they just want them for free, Spiro said. Myxer makes its money from advertising on its site.
