DeviceAnywhere has released the DeviceAnywhere Metrics Report Europe – Summer 2010. Based on empirical data derived from application testing across the DeviceAnywhere product portfolio, the report provides insight into which mobile operating systems and handsets the company’s customers are focusing their testing efforts on in Europe, and how this compares with the US.
The report includes handset testing data from DeviceAnywhere Test Center, an online service which provides access to over 2,000 handsets, deployed across seven countries and over two dozen operator networks. Over 350,000 handset testing hours were logged in DeviceAnywhere Test Center in 2009 across 10,000 active users.
The report found that EU DeviceAnywhere users are focusing testing time on smartphones. Smartphone usage accounted for 61.3 per cent of testing time in Q2, 2010. However the overall proportion of smartphone testing time has not shifted markedly in the last 12 months, with smartphone usage accounting for 58 per cent of testing time in Q3, 2009. The overall proportion of smartphone testing time is slightly larger than in the US, with US developers spending 54.7 per cent of their time on smartphones in Q2 2010.
Android testing time is on the rise. In Q2, 2010, Android was the fourth most tested OS in the EU market, after Symbian, BlackBerry OS and Microsoft Windows Mobile. The amount of time spent on Android devices out of total EU smartphone testing time rose from 1 per cent in Q3, 2009 to 4.9 per cent in Q2, 2010, a trend that DeviceAnywhere expects to continue as the number of Android handsets rises. 
The report also found that European developers show radically different priorities to US developers. Nokia devices dominate the EU market, with 54.1 per cent of total testing time in Q2, 2010, compared to 7.6 per cent of total testing time on US devices during the same time period. Likewise, Symbian devices dominate the smartphone space, with 64.2 per cent of total EU smartphone testing time in Q2, 2010. On US handsets, Symbian accounted for just 4 per cent of total smartphone testing time. Other major contrasts include the focus on BlackBerry and Motorola devices. In the US, developers spent 25.7 per cent of overall testing time on BlackBerry devices, compared to 2.6% per cent of time in Europe. And US developers spent 16.6 per cent of their overall testing time on Motorola, versus 4.6 per cent in Europe.
“Because we work directly with over 10,000 application developers from every segment of the mobile ecosystem across the globe, across all handset manufacturers and operating systems, we have privileged data on the broader trends in mobile application development and testing,” says DeviceAnywhere CEO, Faraz Syed. “This report has shown that there are some key differences in the development and testing trends amongst our European and US customers, which appears to indicate different development strategies. While the European handset and operating system testing data is broadly aligned with overall market shares, US developers appear to be developing for emerging players with popular application stores. With that said, it will be interesting to see how the introduction of additional devices based on mobile operating systems, such as the iPad and Samsung Galaxy Tab, will have on our metrics in the future.”
You can download the full report here.
