Kayak: iPhone users buy travel online, Android not so much

If you want to reach mobile consumers who'll actually buy travel online, should your company put resources into iOS apps or is Android the better way to go?

Actually you need both, but consider the experiences of travel metasearch site Kayak.

Kayak has attracted more than 10 million downloads of its mobile apps for iPhone/iPad, Android, Blackberry, Nokia, Windows Phone 7 and HP Touchpad, with iPhone and Android notching first and second place, respectively, in terms of apps which have scored the most downloads, says Paul English, co-founder and chief technology officer.

But there is a difference between the commerce proclivities of Kayak's iPhone and Android users, English says.

In sum, iPhone users buy stuff online and Android users mostly don't.

By "stuff," of course, we mean travel products.

"People who have iPhones actually buy travel online and people who have Androids don't really," English says.

He wonders whether it is a "demographics issue."

Regardless of the reason, Kayak's iPhone users show more loyalty and click through more often than its Android users, English says.

Going beyond the anecdotal evidence, last summer the Hunch Blog published an infographic detailing a user survey about the demographics' and other differences between iOS and Android users.

Among the myriad findings:

iPhone/iOS users tend to have more females in their ranks, are older, have higher incomes and are more likely to have American Express credit cards in their wallets or purses than Android users;

While Android users are "36% more likely to not remember their last vacation," on the other hand iPhone/iOS users are 15% more likely to have taken a vacation in the last six months, and were 55% more likely to have used their frequent flyer miles to have taken several free rewards flights during 2011;