Economic and business perspectives on smartphones as multi-sided platforms

Abstract

We interpret mobile operating systems such as iOS and Android as multi-sided platforms that serve a variety of “customers,” including consumers (users), handset makers, network operators, app developers, advertisers, and chip manufacturers. After reconstructing the history of smartphones, we explore the variety of business models that operating system owners or sponsors have implemented, and highlight their implications for the relationships between platform owners/sponsors and customers. Next we focus on those dimensions of the smartphone experience that consumers declare they value the most, namely network quality, the features of the operating system itself, and the selection of apps available for each platform. We study how different mobile operating-system owners or sponsors have managed to innovate in these various dimensions, often by engaging other customer types. In the concluding section we rely on the insights derived from multi-sided platform theory to analyze the reasons why two mobile platforms—Apple׳s and Google׳s—have been able to displace various incumbents.