Apple: iPhone Now Accounts for 50% of Mobile Web Traffic

The iPhone now accounts for 50 percent of mobile Web traffic from smartphones in the U.S., according to an AdMob Mobile Metrics report released Tuesday morning. Over the past six months, the iPhone has taken share from Blackberry and Windows Mobile. In August 2008, the iPhone made up only 10 percent of mobile Web traffic from smartphones. During the same time, Blackberry’s share has gone from 32 percent to 21 percent (with the Curve and the Pearl coming in stronger than the Storm), while Windows Mobile has taken an even bigger hit, declining from 30 percent to 13 percent. Palm is also down to 7 percent from 19 percent six months ago.

The only other smartphone operating system that is showing gains in mobile Web usage is Android, which has captured a strong 5 percent share just three months after launch. And that is up from 3 percent in January. The gains shown by the iPhone and Android show what is possible when phones are built with fully capable browsers and support a rich array of Web apps.

On a worldwide basis, smartphones running on the Symbian OS (mostly from Nokia) still dominate mobile Web traffic with a 43 percent share. But that is down from 64 percent in August. The iPhone has gone from 4 percent to 33 percent of mobile Web traffic on a worldwide basis. All the other mobile operating systems are down as well.

This data is extrapolated from AdMob’s mobile ad network and only looks at smartphone share. Overall, smartphones generated 33 percent of worldwide mobile Web traffic, up from 26 percent six months ago.

Original post

Comments

[bobthenoob:]

what do you think will happen after iPhone 3.0 release?

Mar 24 10:37 AM

[Yagottabe K...:]

Though I wouldn't doubt the conclusion of the Subject TOO much, it should be noted that the statistics being gathered are for web pages on which the statistics gatherer has ads which undoubtedly is a VERY small subset of mobile web pages out there.

Mar 24 10:40 AM

[Timeline St...:]

Shouldn't the 6-month change show as a percent of change, instead of absolute difference?

If I were a Nokia investor, I would wonder precisely what I am getting for my company's $6 billion annual investment in R & D, other than a rapidly shrinking market share in the flagship category of smartphones?

I might also look longingly at Apple, which accomplishes with $1.1 billion in R & D spending what Nokia seems unable to do at nearly 6X the spend. And that also includes other categories like computers and music players.

Mar 24 10:46 AM

[Techtrader10:]

Erick Schonfeld must be long Apple, he lumps all Apple iPhone numbers and calls out each model of all other manufacturers to make the numbers look smaller, subtle... Is there a way to break out air time of various phones for email, etc.? Those numbers would be interesting, as it would make it possible to see what each of the smart phones were being to for, business, sports, entertainment, etc.

Mar 24 10:52 AM

[jmmx:]

Erick - thaks for the data!

@TimboM
On Mar 24 10:46 AM TimboM wrote:

> If I were a Nokia investor, I would wonder precisely what I am getting
> for my company's $6 billion annual investment in R & D, other
> than a rapidly shrinking market share in the flagship category of
> smartphones?
>
In all fairness to Nokia one needs to note a few things.
1- Most "smartphones" do not really have web browsing capabilities, or if they do, the small size of the screens do not foster extended use. So it is only natural that the iPhone would pick up share.

2- I am sure that the total number of web hits by smartphones has grown tremendously so Nokia may be loosing Share, but still expanding.

3- This is only share of web traffic NOT share of sales. The conclusion is obvious - iPhone users are much more likely to browse than users of other phone.

Mar 24 11:43 AM

[jmmx:]

On Mar 24 10:52 AM Techtrader10 wrote:

> Erick Schonfeld must be long Apple, he lumps all Apple iPhone numbers
> and calls out each model of all other manufacturers to make the numbers
> look smaller, subtle...

Did you look at the second chart which is share by OS? This does exactly what you ask for!

Besides - he is only passing on the numbers from the AdMob research, not generating them.

Mar 24 11:48 AM

[JamesApple:]

IPhone at 50% web traffic points to people demonstrating the usefulness of the iPhone, when it reaches 90% people would be showing their tendency to go with the best there is and their preference of a simpler quality of lifestyle.

Mar 24 01:12 PM

[User 210458:]

Can anyone give a suggesting about RIM? I bought at 38, now it's 44.63. Do I hold it to wait its report or sold it?

Mar 24 01:59 PM

[Fedman:]

>>Can anyone give a suggesting about RIM? I bought at 38, now it's 44.63. Do I hold it to wait its report or sold it?<<

Double up!!!

Seriously, don't look to a message board for stock advice.

Mar 24 02:25 PM

[JamesApple:]

I worked at RIM for 10 months. Compared to most mamufacturers I had contracted at, RIM has to be the most disorganized, dysfunctional, contra-productive, nasty, outdated and discriminating workplace I know. It is a shame that it is still operating as a business. The stock price at $45 is not worth $25 given their old inflexible operations, and simply unproductive and abusive employees and management. RIM should be out of business in a short time.

Mar 24 03:06 PM

[Love Rimm:]

User 380765; it is obious that u are a disgruntaled employee, if u are telling the truth at all ! Try not to make it so obious, eh. And also, This Eric guy really looks like an Apple Geek ! I love it....

Mar 24 03:49 PM

[wirelessmouse:]

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Steve Ballmer (April 2007)

Mar 24 06:37 PM

[mollytjm:]

this is even more amazing since the data can only be 2 years old, if it includes the iPhone. the Blackberry and Treo had been on the market long before and should have innovated enough to hold off competition but they didn't.
good article.

Mar 25 10:05 AM

[pk de cville:]

@Techtrader

There's only the one iPhone 3G, unless you think the memory 8GB vs 16 GB makes 2 models.

Mar 25 10:07 AM

[Fremont Rea...:]

I'm hoping the 3rd generation improves keyboard input. I can see it gaining greater adoption with the business community if it does.

I wish the Blackberry Bold, had a bigger screen and it offered touch a UI in addition to the keyboard.

Mar 25 12:44 PM

[brewer:]

The new sw does allow the onscreen kb to work in landscape orientation in a lot of apps that didn't support it earlier. It takes a little practice, but I can type faster on the virtual keyboard than on the little, cramped "real" ones. This is probaby due to the (usually) very intelligent auto-correct software.

This took about 1 minute to type, and no corrections were necessary. It's not touch typing, but pretty fast for hunt and peck (pretty much the standard among business types...)

Mar 25 05:20 PM

[Paul Harper:]

"There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance." Steve Ballmer (April 2007)

more significantly, Apple have now released certs with Verisign; i.e. turn your handset into a hard token.

www.geek.com/articles/.../

business app store coming shortly ?

Apr 03 06:47 AM