Nokia has lost its overall market share leadership in the worldwide smartphone segment to Apple, based on browser calls for mobile ads. The mobile ad share is important because apps drive customer loyalty more than hardware features.
Gartner had noted in its most recent report on the smartphone market that “services and applications are now instrumental to smartphones’ success.” That report, reflecting first quarter 2009 figures, had Nokia still firmly in the lead. But according to numbers from mobile ad service vendor AdMob, Apple smartphones received 49 percent of ad traffic in May, compared with 32 percent for Nokia. Apple offers many more apps, and thus it’s more geared to consumers than Nokia.
Apple's frictionless system and huge customer base, feeds a virtuous cycle of more apps for the App Store leading to more customers for Apple’s iPhone. Apple had the advantage of the years of experience with iTunes and their iPods PLUS their own acceptable billing solution and that has served them well. Industry sources are of the opinion that other stores simply aren’t matching the ARPUs [average revenue per user] of the Apple App store
