When it comes to using the mobile web, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone that denies the iPhone’s multi-touch web browsing experience as anything less than top-notch. The mobile world scurried to bring their own touchscreen competitors to market when the iPhone blew up the scene with its inaugural launch in 2007, but no other handset has since been able to come close to the iPhone’s Safari web browser in terms of user experience. And, the latest data on mobile web usage suggests that the iPhone has a commanding lead on its closest compeitors. Net Applications estimates that the iPhone (both the iPhone and iPhone 3G) accounts for a whopping 66.61% of all mobile web traffic!
Percentage of mobile web data by mobile phone platform (February 2009)
The news of the iPhone’s amazing mobile web market share comes on the heels of an AdMob report that had the iPhone OS being responsible for 51% of all US smartphone web traffic.
The iPhone OS, based on the Mac OS, still only accounts for less than 0.5% of the mobile operating systems that surf the mobile web. But, that hasn’t stopped the iconic touchscreen handset from pulling down over 9 times the mobile web data of its closest smartphone competition, Windows Mobile. With just 6.91% of web traffic being routed to Windows Mobile smartphones, it’s clear that Apple is quickly dominating the mobile browsing space.
Notably, the Android OS has earned itself a tied-position with the Symbian platform, both accounting for 6.15% of mobile web traffic. Despite Nokia’s domination of the global mobile phone market with its Symbian-powered handsets, the Finns apparently failed to provide its users with the kind of desirable web surfing experience that has made the iPhone OS, nay the Android OS, so popular in such short time. The biggest take away here is that Android OS managed to secure the same mobile web usage volume that took Symbian years to secure.
Consider this. As the web becomes more tightly integrated into our daily lives (how many of you would go through withdrawal without access to Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or IntoMobile for just a day?), the need for a truly usable and fast mobile web browser becomes every more important. Is it any wonder that the iPhone drives over 66% of all mobile web data?
[Via: AppleInsider]