iPhone set to overtake Nokia as No 1 mobile web browser

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 19 March 2008 02:36

IT Industry - Market

iPhone is the number two Internet mobile browser in the UK and number one in the US, according to StatCounter, operator of a service that provides website visitor tracking statistics

Technorati Profile StatCounter says that iPhone took 0.06 percent of the total Internet browser market in the UK in March, behind Nokia with 0.15 percent. "iPhone already has three times the Internet browser market share of BlackBerry (0.02 percent) in the UK [and] Sony Ericsson has 0.01 percent of the UK market...iPhone and iTouch combined took 0.9 percent of the UK market in March to date," StatCounter said.

In the US iPhone's market share of Internet browsing at 0.18 percent (0.23 percent including iTouch) is significantly ahead of Nokia which came in at 0.01 percent. "It would appear that iPhone is more than living up to its claims of being a user friendly Internet browser, unlike many other mobile phones," said Aodhan Cullen, founder and CEO of StatCounter.

Globally the StatCounter analysis shows that Nokia is still well ahead in the mobile Internet browser market with 0.25 percent in March to date. iPhone is number two with 0.06 percent (0.08 percent if iTouch is included), ahead of BlackBerry with 0.01 percent.

The StatCounter analysis finds that Microsoft Internet Explorer still leads the browser market overall with 53 percent in the UK. But it is facing real competition from Firefox which has 35 percent of the UK market. In the US the battle is neck and neck with Internet Explorer holding 44.5 percent and Firefox 43.9 percent in March.

StatCounter says its analysis was based on a sample of 371 million page views globally from December 07 to March 08, including 71 million page views in the US and 14 million in the UK.