StatCounter: Nokia leads the way in mobile web usage

Mobile Web usage is on the rise, with users who access the Web through mobile devices having nearly doubled every year since 2009 according to analytics firm StatCounter. Web usage on mobile devices grew to 8.5% in January of 2012, up from 4.3% in the same month a year earlier. “While global Internet usage through mobiles is still under 10%, the pace of growth is remarkable,” said StatCounter CEO Aodhan Cullen. Apple leads the way in both the United States and United Kingdom, however Nokia is still the global leader - driven by its dominance in India - with nearly 40% of mobile Web browsing. In North America, Apple has a massive share of 59.11%, with Samsung and RIM coming in at 11.43% and 10.06%, respectively. Apple comes in second globally with roughly 30%, followed by Samsung with a 14% share. Android manufactures combined to account for less than 25% of mobile Web usage, with Research in Motion falling to roughly 8%. The Blackberry maker ranks second behind Apple in the U.K., however. Read on for StatCounter's press release. Mobile internet usage is doubling year on year Nokia global leader, Apple king in US and UK Boston, USA and Dublin, Ireland; Monday, 6th February, 2012: Global internet usage through mobile devices, not including tablets*, has almost doubled to 8.5% in January 2012 from 4.3% last year according to free web analytics company StatCounter. The firm's research arm StatCounter Global Stats highlights the increasing use of mobile devices to access the internet with market share doubling year on year since 2009 (Table A below). “While global internet usage through mobiles is still under 10%, the pace of growth is remarkable,” commented Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter. StatCounter has also announced that new stats regarding mobile vendors are now available on its Global Stats website. The firm has been compiling and refining these stats for some time and has now made the beta project public. Based on initial research covering all traffic to the StatCounter network, Nokia leads worldwide, most probably driven by its dominance in India. Apple is second globally but leads the US and UK markets. In the UK RIM is second only to Apple. “Following repeated requests, we've decided to make our new mobile vendor stats publicly available,” commented Aodhan Cullen, StatCounter. “As the mobile space is constantly evolving, we keep our detection under constant review.” Anyone wishing to contribute to the detection project can submit feedback using the detect tool: http://gs.statcounter.com/detect StatCounter (http://statcounter.com/) provides free website traffic analysis. This allows website owners, developers and bloggers to capture website intelligence in real time e.g. number of visitors, visitors by country/region, search terms, popular pages, download stats, exit links and other data. ————————————————– Table A: Global use of mobile devices to access internet (excludes tablets*) Jan 2009: 0.7% Jan 2010: 1.6% Jan 2011: 4.3% Jan 2012: 8.5% Source: StatCounter Global Stats —————————————————– * StatCounter defines mobile device as a pocket-sized computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input or a miniature keyboard.