More People Use Android Than iOS, but Black Friday Stats Revealed the Reason That the Best Developers Are Sticking With Apple

Apple may only hold 42 percent of the U.S. smartphone market — and merely 12 percent of the global market — but the company is dominating when it comes to a tech treasure trove: online shopping.

This Black Friday, Apple's iOS beat out Google's Android smartphone operating system on a slew of shopping-related fronts, according to IBM analysis:

• Average Order Value: iOS users averaged $121.86 per order compared to $98.07 for Android users, a difference [of] 24.3 percent.

• Online Traffic: iOS traffic accounted for 34.2 percent of total online traffic, more than double that of Android, which drove 15 percent of all online traffic.

• Online Sales: iOS sales accounted for 21.9 percent of total online sales, nearly quadruple that of Android, which drove 5.8 percent of all online sales.

An Apple Store employee shows off a new iPhone at the iPhone 6 launch at the Eaton Centre Apple Store on Friday, September 19, 2014, in Toronto. (Ryan Emberley/Invision for Apple/AP Images)

Adobe reported similar findings: "iOS users drove four times as much mobile sales revenue as Android users, 79 and 21 percent respectively."

From a business standpoint, Android's bigger market share doesn't count for much compared to the deep pockets and and ready wallets of Apple devotees.

Here's how Business Insider put it:

Android's market share advantage means nothing because iOS is more popular when it comes to usage, as demonstrated by these shopping data points. If you're making an app or a website, you want it to work best on iOS because that is where the most lucrative customers are. So, in practice, Apple gets the best apps and the best web experience because that's what makes sense for companies and developers.

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