It seems that all we hear about in terms of the mobile web lately is about how the iPhone is responsible for fueling the growth of the mobile web. This could be because of the recent release of the iPhone 3G or the high percentage of Apple users logging onto the mobile web, but are they ruling the roost quite yet?
Comscore’s recent report found over 80% of European iPhone owners were regular mobile web users as compared to about 30% of overall Smartphone users that also use their data packages. This could be due to the vastly improved mobile web User Experience on Safari. However, global market share of iPhone’s as compared to other Smartphones is actually only 5%.
Admob recently compiled a report on mobile web usage trends based on the aggregated traffic data from their customers which represent over 1 Million impressions per month. One surprising metric from their data is was the number one phone overall. 7.9% of total global pageviews came from either a Motorola RAZR or KRZR phone which are the top 2 mobile web phones in terms of overall mobile web users. Often we think about the mobile web purely in terms of PDA users which is clearly not the case.
Global Mobile Web Users
First let’s look at the market share of Smartphone mobile web users by platform. Surprisingly enough Symbian has a dramatic lead in terms of mobile web market share with over 58% of global users surfing from a Symbian phone. Next come Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones which each make up 13% of global mobile web users. In fact, iPhone lags behind even struggling smartphone manufacturer Palm who has 8% of global market share to Apple’s paltry 5%.
US Mobile Web Users
Next let’s take a look at US mobile web user market share by Smartphone. Blackberry leads US mobile web user market share with 33% of all US mobile web users. This beats Windows mobile, the number 2 US Smartphone in terms of market share with 27%. palm weighs in with a surprisingly hefty 20% that leaves fledling Smartphone manufacturer Apple with only 10% of the US market. These numbers have the potential to shift quickly with the new iPhone 3G selling 1 million phones last weekend which is also likely to increase the availability of the original iPhone. However that’s still likely to be less than a 2.5% shift in the 40 million US mobile web user market if every single one goes to a mobile web neophyte.
UK Mobile Web Users
Lastly, let’s take a look at UK smartphone mobile user market share. I was surprised to see Symbian’s overwhelming domination of the UK mobile web market with over 88% of all smartphone users accessing the mobile web from a Symbian device. In fact, Windows Mobile, Blackberry and Apple each have only 4% of UK smartphone users that are accessing the mobile web.
Closing Remarks
The landscape of the mobile web is shifting dramatically and is currently dominated by Nokia’s newly acquired Symbian OS. Overall mobile web usage has doubled in the last year and there’s a good chance that these numbers will shift as the mobile web matures. Apple has an edge in that the majority of the iPhone that they cell go into the hands of someone that will use the web on their handset. This is likely aided by the excellent mobile web experience on the iPhone and the new faster data speeds on the iPhone 3G, however Apple still has a long way to go in dominating the mobile web smartphone market.
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