“Android” The Boy’s Club Of Smartphones

Android, it seems, may be figuratively stuck in a treehouse with a “NO GIRLS ALLOWED” sign nail to the door.

Google’s smartphone platform has paying attention a disproportionate number of male users, according to a report released today. And in case you think the gender gap is worldwide to all smart phones, Apple’s iPhone actually proved to be fairly female-friendly.

Android and iPhone User Differences

The report, assemble by mobile advertising firm AdMob, is based on a survey of smartphone users around the world. While the sampling isn’t essential 100-percent scientific, it does give some attractive fodder for the always-popular Android-iPhone comparison game.

According to AdMob, almost three-quarters of Android users are male. That’s not to say you have to be a guy in order to succeed as an Android fanboy, of course — but the fellas sure do hold a great majority in Google’s court.

iPhone users, in comparison, are attractive close to consistently divided when it comes to gender. A full forty-three percent of Apple fanatics are female, AdMob finds. Palm’s webOS is a similarly balanced story, with 42 percent of its user base waving the woman card.

(Windows Mobile — er, sorry, Windows Phone 7 Series — wasn’t mentioned in the learn. clearly, its users fall into several undefinable gender category. I won’t ask.)

The Android Gender Gap

So why the gap with Android? AdMob’s psychoanalysis didn’t go into detail, but one could surely speculate that marketing may play a role. The Motorola Droid — arguably the fastest selling Android phone thus far, still with the debut of Google’s Nexus One — has been the subject of a widespread and unforgettable advertising campaign. In addition to the whole iPhone-bashing “iDon’t” thing, the Droid’s marketing has unquestionably revolved around several male-friendly concepts.

From robot-focused commercials toward spots featuring stealth fighter jets, the Droid’s marketing has made its target audience very clear. One ad even famously asked if a phone should be pretty, then went on to bang the iPhone as a “tiara-wearing, digitally clueless loveliness pageant queen.” The Droid, it explained, is a robot — “not a princess.”

Now, will all women be turned off by that type of approach? Of course not; plenty of tech-loving ladies be grateful for geeky stuff as much as any manly man. But it’s hard to deny that exterior of the world of technophiles; the campaign was usually designed to plea to guys. And that may be part of the reason why Android, thus far, is leaning a lot to the boys’ side of the playground.

As the number of Android handsets continues to expand (exponentially, it sometimes seems), I’m guessing this gender gap will grow to be less pronounced. Let’s hope so, anyhow — this three-to-one guy-girl ratio sure doesn’t do a lot for our street cred.

[Via http://technonewsworld.wordpress.com]