Apple's iOS finishes 2011 with 52% share of mobile Web browsing
Apple closed out 2011 with a commanding 52.1 percent share of mobile devices tracked browsing the Web, while Google's Android had just 16.2 percent.
The latest figures from Net Applications show that iOS represented more than half of mobile devices seen online in December. In second place was Java ME with 21.3 percent, while Android came in third.
Apple's share slid from 54 percent in November of 2011, and is down from its high of 61.5 percent in October. But it's also up from the 46.6 percent share iOS was tracked at in February of 2011.
Coming in fourth in the data was Nokia's Symbian platform, with 5.8 percent, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry holds 3.5 percent. Interestingly, while sales of new BlackBerry devices have been weak, December of 2011 proved to be the best month of the year for RIM.
Breaking down iPhone versus iPad, Apple's smartphone took 25.2 percent to lead all mobile devices. The iPad, though, was the second most popular device, with a 24.5 percent representation.
While Apple dominated in mobile devices browsing the Web in 2011, it's a much different story in the PC market. There, the Mac finished with 6.4 percent in December of 2011, well behind the 92.2 percent share Microsoft held with Windows.
Tracking specific versions of PC operating systems shows that Windows XP, despite being 10 years old, still leads the way with 46.5 percent. Windows 7 is in second with 37 percent, while Windows Vista holds 8.44 percent.
Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard platform remains its most popular at 3 percent, despite the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in July. Lion closed out 2011 with a 2 percent share in December.
The latest figures from Net Applications show that iOS represented more than half of mobile devices seen online in December. In second place was Java ME with 21.3 percent, while Android came in third.
Apple's share slid from 54 percent in November of 2011, and is down from its high of 61.5 percent in October. But it's also up from the 46.6 percent share iOS was tracked at in February of 2011.
Coming in fourth in the data was Nokia's Symbian platform, with 5.8 percent, while Research in Motion's BlackBerry holds 3.5 percent. Interestingly, while sales of new BlackBerry devices have been weak, December of 2011 proved to be the best month of the year for RIM.
Breaking down iPhone versus iPad, Apple's smartphone took 25.2 percent to lead all mobile devices. The iPad, though, was the second most popular device, with a 24.5 percent representation.
While Apple dominated in mobile devices browsing the Web in 2011, it's a much different story in the PC market. There, the Mac finished with 6.4 percent in December of 2011, well behind the 92.2 percent share Microsoft held with Windows.
Tracking specific versions of PC operating systems shows that Windows XP, despite being 10 years old, still leads the way with 46.5 percent. Windows 7 is in second with 37 percent, while Windows Vista holds 8.44 percent.
Apple's Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard platform remains its most popular at 3 percent, despite the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion in July. Lion closed out 2011 with a 2 percent share in December.
Comments
Apple closed out 2011 with a commanding 52.1 percent share of mobile devices tracked browsing the Web, while Google's Android had just 16.2 percent.
The latest figures from Net Applications show that iOS represented more than half of mobile devices seen online in December. In second place was Java ME with 21.3 percent, while Android came in third.
Looking at the netmarketshare.com graph linked to in the article, there is a curious and artificial-looking relationship between iOS and JME. Doesn't look right.
Looking at the netmarketshare.com graph linked to in the article, there is a curious and artificial-looking relationship between iOS and JME. Doesn't look right.
Yes, I see what you mean - it looks almost exactly inverse to a combo of the iPad and iPhone lines. Not sure why that would be, unless it was drawn wrongly.
I wonder why in this graph, Android is represented only with Android 2.3 ?
Perhaps it was limited to only those android-compatible phones running 2.3 rather than any of the other Android OS versions? There's a couple of odd things about the graph.
Edit: And there's the same relationship between Android and Java ME/Opera Mini as between those and iOS Safari.
Yes, I see what you mean - it looks almost exactly inverse to a combo of the iPad and iPhone lines. Not sure why that would be, unless it was drawn wrongly.
In fact, if you look at the data by month, iOS + JME = 0.7375 ± 0.01. In other word the sum of the iOS and JME shares is constant to within 1%, even though they are changing significantly month to month. That has to be a serious methodology or analysis error. On their website, the same correlations (and almost the same data) exist in browser market share between Safari and Opera Mini.
There appears to be something very wrong with these data as presented.
I wonder what all those Androids out there are used for? Don't tell me they make phone calls! LOL
They're busy being charged.
http://9to5google.com/2012/01/01/chr...owser-in-2012/
Anyway, back to the specifics of this article and it's odd results.
Perhaps it was limited to only those android-compatible phones running 2.3 rather than any of the other Android OS versions? There's a couple of odd things about the graph.
It is bizarre considering that Android 2.2 still makes up a fair percent of Android devices. Maybe web browsing on the 2.2 devices isn't very good or it is on lower quality hardware that is not optimised for browsing.
http://developer.android.com/resourc...-versions.html
The graph only seems to show OS's that have captured at least 5% of the market. Maybe 2.2 has dropped down below that (or never made it in the first place) and was lumped in with 'Others'. Still that would be like breaking IOS into versions and dumping IOS 3 (I'm sure some still use it) into 'Others' thus reducing the IOS share. As you say, an odd graph.
They're busy being charged.
The curious thing is that if you follow the link in the article to the Netmarketshare site, it just says "Android" and the Java ME trend line matches the Opera Mini line in the browser share graph.
Edit: And there's the same relationship between Android and Java ME/Opera Mini as between those and iOS Safari.
Once I started looking for unexpected correlations I found them all over the place. They "explain" their data collection methodology on their website, but these platform/browser data have clearly been reduced as non-independent variables, because the correlations observed have to be artifacts.
"We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on-demand network of HitsLink Analytics and SharePost clients. The network includes over 40,000 websites, and spans the globe. We ‘count’ unique visitors to our network sites, and only count one unique visit to each network site per day. This is part of our quality control process to prevent fraud, and ensure the most accurate portrayal of Internet usage market share. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million unique visits per month. The information published on www.netmarketshare.com is an aggregation of the data from this network of hosted website traffic statistics. In addition, we classify 430+ referral sources identified as search engines. Aggregate traffic referrals from these engines are summarized and reported monthly. The statistics for search engines include both organic and sponsored referrals."
With regard to browsers, did anyone else catch the news that Google Chrome is expected to become the number one browser in 2012, overtaking Internet Explorer after just 4 years?
http://9to5google.com/2012/01/01/chr...owser-in-2012/
Interesting, and completely different to netmarketshare's numbers and trends for browsers. Are netmarketshare possibly just completely making this stuff up?
... Are netmarketshare possibly just completely making this stuff up?
Probably not. If they were, it probably wouldn't look so odd.
They're busy being charged.
Probably not. If they were, it probably wouldn't look so odd.
Good point.
I don't know why the survey isn't tracking other versions of Android. Feel free to contact them yourself.
And why would android have 0% at the start of the year?
In order to make iOS look good in comparison?
If Android were to be represented in any kind of a factual manner, the vertical scale would have to be increased greatly to make the graph high enough, and iOS would be in the middle instead of near the top.