NetMarketShare, an internet statistics firm, announces each month the breakdown of mobile web traffic between OSes. October’s results are definitely different from what a seasoned Android fanboy would expect. Given Android’s stratospheric rise in the past two years, I’d expect the percentage to be a bit higher than the 18.9 percent it’s currently sitting it. Apple’s wunderkind, however, has propelled itself to a market-dominating 61.64 percent of mobile web traffic. Just what exactly is causing this significant discrepancy even at this late stage of the mobile OS game?
Frankly, it’s quite simple if we take a closer look at just what makes up the different OSes. iOS has millions of iPads, iPod Touches, and iPhones to make up its statistics. With the advent of the iPad, web traffic on iOS increased in a rapid fashion, ballooning over 25 percent in almost two years. Total iOS devices, especially with all of them constantly sucking down obscene amounts of data with their multitude of apps, obviously consume the largest amount of mobile data. Not to mention, obviously October’s statistics are skewed with the million of new iPhone 4Ses that have flooded the market. Early purchasers downloading every app in existence and exploring the web in their shiny new toys contribute in a significant way to these statistics.
Android smartphones, still on a steady increase in web traffic, don’t have anything to worry about. Google needs to get its act together and push tablets to increase its mobile web traffic. Browsing on a smartphone on the go can be a blast, but the tablet experience lends itself better to surfing the interwebs and therefore, increased traffic.
The fact that Blackberry is sitting at 2.48 percent and Windows Phone 7 didn’t even make the list (residing in the 0.67 percent classified as other) is a testament to how much RIM and Microsoft need to step up their game. When Apple is so blatantly in the lead, something drastic needs to be done to balance the scales. NetMarketShare’s statistics will be interesting to see a year from now, after Nokia’s presence is felt in the U.S. and RIM finally releases phones with BBX.
We’re having fun with how to tell lies with statistics today I guess. Stats like this usually don’t measure total data traffic, they measure *website* traffic. Android users are far more likely to use an app than a browser, so a ton of their data traffic just never shows up.
http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/online_mobile/mobile-apps-beat-the-mobile-web-among-us-android-smartphone-users/
Actually, stats like the one referenced did – and it takes into account app traffic on both OS’s. Needless to say, it’s common knowledge that iOS users spend more per app than Android users and Apple pays devs more than Google does in the Marketplace. But I digress…