Revisiting the iPhone's Browsing Market Share

AdMob, a mobile advertising marketplace, releases what they call a Mobile Metrics Report every month. Since they serve ads for more than 5,000 mobile websites around the world, they claim they are capable of storing and analyzing the data from every ad request, impression, and click. For every ad request, AdMob determines device capabilities using information available in the user’s mobile browser. They claim that over 5 million ad requests and impressions flow through their network every month. The reports reveal some interesting data regarding worldwide share of smartphone traffic.

Contrary to popular opinion (and even here in this blog), Apple's (AAPL) iPhone is nowhere close to holding the top spot in this list. Nokia’s (NOK) Symbian OS takes that honor on a worldwide basis, while out here in the States, RIM’s (RIMM) BlackBerry browser takes the top spot. In fact, as the accompanying charts show, while Symbian’s (driven primarily by Nokia’s N-Series handsets) market share has been steadily growing from 44% to 64% on a worldwide basis in the past six months; iPhone’s share has been hovering around in the 4%-6% category.

Not a bad number for a platform that has been in existence for hardly over a year, but a far cry from the market share numbers reported by Net Applications. In fact, even if you assume that Net Applications measure browsing statistics only in the United States, their numbers are not consistent with what is shown here - RIM, Windows (MSFT) Mobile and Palm (PALM) handsets all have a higher share of Internet traffic to that of the iPhone.

What gives? Firstly, AdMob’s traffic is driven by publisher relationships (5000 mobile sites) and is not necessarily representative of the mobile internet as a whole or of any particular country or market. So if an iPhone user visits a site that does not have a relationship with AdMob, it is not captured in this data. This may be more pronounced with iPhone - its relatively large screen coupled with the full web browser allows its users to explore the “long tail” of the Internet (which clearly is not on AdMob’s radar).

Secondly, AdMob sees ad requests from more than 160 countries - so these numbers reflect a diversified, worldwide view as opposed to the US-centric reports about iPhone’s browsing market share statistics.

Personally, these numbers make more sense to me (I have always had trouble reconciling the browsing market share numbers from Net Applications with the fact that there are over 100 million Symbian platforms in circulation) - while an individual iPhone user probably browses more than an individual Nokia/Symbian user, it stands to reason that the sum total of all the Nokia/Symbian users generate more traffic than the traffic aggregate from the iPhone users, at least for now.

Disclosure: none

Comments

[jack dee:]

and here come the apple fanboys to protest any number that does not show Apple at the top.

NOK is huge, NOK has more fans than apple many many more and NOK does not rest on laurels. Far too much time is spent focusing on apple in the USA, and mostly when talking about how great apple has done the writers forget to mention they are talking about the USA market and not the global market. the world of phones is far far greater outside the USA than it is inside.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Will MOT and NOK and other come out with quick me toos, or will they come out with stuff that is super cool but dif.

Phones are fickle like sports crowds they can go from cheers to boos in a heart beat. Sure the "fanboys" of each brand remain but it is the fickle crowds that are the big numbers.

2008 Sep 15 01:40 PM

[jmmx:]

These data really have little meaning except in relative terms, i.e. relation to it's own previous data. As you point out, there are many factors that affect the results, all of which are difficult, if not impossible to quantify. Another example is this: perhaps iPhone users surf a lot more, but are less prone to click through to ads; or at least to the ads that AdMob represents.

So the interesting thing will be to compare the upcoming reports, since the 3G release.

So it will be interesting to see

2008 Sep 15 01:46 PM

[Brandon:]

I'm not an Apple fanboy, but I like this stock a lot at 140. I would like it a lot more at $130 but I don't see that happening. All the people screaming 'it's broken support it's going to $115' are really pushing it.

2008 Sep 15 02:03 PM

[Truth Hurts:]

What this tells me is that iPhone users don't really visit many "mobile web" sites. That comports with my experience. "Mobile Web" is a joke - the sites generally crippled (at best) or totally useless. The iPhone allows the user to use the "real" internet and real websites. The difference between "mobile web" and the real thing is huge - it's like comparing a kids' ride-on toy car with a Ferrari.
AdMob has a vested interest in downplaying anything that makes the advertising service they sell look bad, so they would want to claim that iPhone users aren't really doing much browsing - because if iPhone users ARE doing a lot of browsing, and AdMob isn't hitting those (typically upwardly-mobile) users with ads, it makes their service look less valuable.

2008 Sep 15 02:35 PM

[jjw120:]

This article has no value. You cannot extrapolate beyond the population that you are sampling. The information provided is only relevant to clients of Admob.

2008 Sep 15 02:51 PM

[aapladay:]

Yes, I agree with User, iPhone is used on the "real" internet.
Before the iPhone, what did we have? Ohhhhhh corporate emaillllll ooooooooo ahhhhhhhhhh, big freaking deal for the average consumer! Now everyone is scrambling to compete with Apple's new iPhone, but what would they be doing if there were no iPhone? Probably jack! If you are a Nokia or RIM fanboy you should be thanking Apple for getting your companies off their fat butts. Frankly I don't invest or buy products from companies that sit down during a marathon.

2008 Sep 15 02:59 PM

[Anonymous W...:]

As an investor, I really don't give a rat's petutti. Look at the Apple big picture. All the rest of the numbers will catchup regardless to the Apple rocketship. Apple knows that the growing popularity of it's ecosystem will naturally pull along the mobile viewing leverage.

2008 Sep 15 05:26 PM

[Tillies:]

I just bought an iPhone..haven't a clue what 'mobile web' is! I just google the website I want and go there! Just like on my computer at home. Is there something less than this out there and why would I even consider it?

2008 Sep 15 06:19 PM

[vizzaccaro:]

Hi. I am the CEO of Net Applications. What we measure is generally outside what is considered the mobile web. We do not measure WAP pages or pages that do not support javascript. Because of this, our iPhone usage numbers are going to be much higher than Symbian or RIMM.

2008 Sep 15 11:53 PM

[PK de C'ville:]

"US/WW Share of smartphone traffic" - NOT.

Seems like the other mobiles are going to special mobile websites audited by AdMob.

"Oh. Isn't that cute? They can access the internets!"

Well, it's true in the sense that the other mobiles are true 'smartphones' while the iPhone is really in a class by itself - the only pocket <standard> web browser.

2008 Sep 16 10:51 AM

[Uncle Miltie:]

Dig down a little into that report (page 4), and you'll see why this is meaningless. 4 of the top 6 devices are Motorola phones which have no web browsing capability - only a severly limited version of the mobile web. The top individual handset for market share? The Motorola RAZR V3.

Based on that flawed data, the report and this blog post are also meaningless...

2008 Sep 16 11:51 AM

[Money Penny:]

Another junk article. No proper research and no proper context. MOT phones for mobile web usage survey? What a joke. If such guys worked at MOT, no wonder it is in dumpster….

2008 Sep 18 10:26 AM

[Ram Krishnan:]

Guys,

Take a chill pill! The fact that iPhone users visit some of the same web sites as the other smartphone users clearly indicates that the web sites covered are not just WAP or mobile-only version of the web sites. Motorola RAZR has a WAP browser - and can visit WAP-versions of the web sites. The point of the article is that other smartphone users also surf - it is just that the sites they go to are not monitored by Net Applications

2008 Sep 18 12:34 PM