With the rollout of Facebook Home for Android devices last week, one of the assumptions is that it will at least attract the social network’s most avid users. But what if they don’t
want Android phones to begin with? According to a Yankee Group survey of 15,000 consumers in March, only 37% of Facebook fans—people who rank its brand an eight or higher on a one-to-10
scale—intended to buy an Android phone.
That compares with 43% of non-fans. Facebook fans prefer iOS devices, with almost half planning to buy an iPhone compared to 41% of non-fans.
“Given that Apple isn’t likely to allow Facebook the same flexibility in revamping the user interface that Android does, this means that Facebook Home will likely be used by a minority of
Facebook mobile users,” wrote Carl Howe, VP of research at Yankee Group, in a blog
post.
But he suggests Facebook Home could be bad news for Android overall. Howe predicts it’s only a matter of time before the Android overlay app replaces Google services including
messaging, picture uploads, search and mapping. “That reinforces a trend that we’re seeing all over the world: The increasing fragmentation of the Android ecosystem is weakening that
ecosystem’s value and consistency,” he noted.
With Android at near peak adoption in the U.S., Yankee Group projects the share of Android users will begin falling by 2015. According
to comScore, that's already happening. Android’s share of the U.S. smartphone market in February fell 2 percentage points to 51.7% in February, while iOS gained 3.9 points to reach 38.9%.