Posts Tagged ‘mobile marketing’
Mobile Browser Market Share Data
As promised to lots of people last week at Pubcon, and to Mike Grehan over at SES, I’m going to start posting even more varied data.
A frequent request from and for search marketers is insight into the mobile browser market. While still tiny in relation to general web traffic when considered from the search perspective, the growing adoption of devices built with web browsing in mind make these numbers are worth watching. I suspect that as iPhones & Android devices become even more ubiquitous, these numbers will continue to grow. Most remarkably, if Blackberry built a better web interface / UI into their devices, I suspect their share would more accurately reflect their general market share for devices in use.
I’ve prepared two charts: one which includes all the mobile browsers; and one with the iPhone removed. The reason is simple - the iPhone is so dominant that it’s impossible to see market share changes for the others without excluding it. This is very much like Google’s overwhelming marketshare dominance in search.
With the iPhone’s market share displayed, it’s hard to make out any of the competitors:
Without the iPhone’s market share displayed, it’s much easier to see the trends starting to emerge:
The obvious insights that I spied immediately were:
1) Android outperforms Blackberry even thought their install base is tiny by contrast.
2) Android’s numbers will be very interesting to watch with Verizon’s big push on their devices.
3) Windows Mobile numbers are horrible! By the time MSFT catches up on search, they’ll realize that they’ve lost their dominant position for being the interface to the web! (IE, mobile etc…)
4) Look at the Palm Pre! For a phone which T-Mobile didn’t really do a great job pushing, their lead on Microsoft is astounding. (yes, I’ve asked for those numbers to be double-checked).
5) Every one of these browsers is growing strongly and steadily. It’s a great sign for the future of mobile marketing!
What are your thoughts?
The raw data for those who prefer the numbers, not the graphics:
| iPhone | Android | Blackberry | Palm Pre | Win Mobile | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 31 | 0.448% | 0.038% | 0.026% | 0.008% | 0.005% |
| Aug 31 | 0.591% | 0.045% | 0.033% | 0.012% | 0.007% |
| Sept 30 | 0.583% | 0.043% | 0.041% | 0.012% | 0.007% |
| Oct 31 | 0.663% | 0.049% | 0.044% | 0.016% | 0.008% |
Enquisite collects data from a network of web sites distributed globally. The data used in this reports represents web sites distributed globally, accessed by browsers located in the U.S.
With mobile browsing in particular, I suspect there’s a higher level of incidence than even of browsers who look up information, but never click through to any destination web site, leaving the search engine / resource of choice being the information portal.
Yes, Google is unquestionably a portal when mobile is considered.