There are now more mobile web access from Androids than from BlackBerry

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 09 March 2011 09:00

Your IT - Mobility

According to web analytics company, StatCounter, web accesses from Android devices topped those from BlackBerries for the first time in February at the global level, and Australia is totally dominated by Apple's iOS.

 

Globally, StatCounter recorded Android accounting to for 15.2 percent of worldwide accesses compared to 14.5 percent for BlackBerry. However Symbian still maintains a strong lead with 30.7 percent ahead of Apple's iOS with 24.6 percent.

(StatCounter does not count the iPad or other tablets mobile device, which it defines as " pocket-sized computing devices, typically having a display screen with touch input or a miniature keyboard.")

StatCounter CEO, Aodhan Cullen, said: "The momentum is certainly with Android which has almost tripled its market share over the last 12 months from 5.4 percent to 15.2 percent. In the same period iOS fell from 33.9 percent to 24.6 percent.

StatCounter data also shows that the use of mobile to access the Internet compared to desktops has more than doubled worldwide from 1.72 percent a year ago to 4.45 percent today. The same trend is evident in the US with mobile Internet usage more than doubling over the past year from 2.59 percent to 6.32 percent.

In North America Android at 26.4 percent in February also overtook BlackBerry at 22.2 percent. iOS leads the North American market with 37.5 percent. Compared to its global presence Symbian is well back in North America with 5.7 percent.

StatCounter says that its global stats are based on aggregate data collected on a sample of more than 15 billion page views per month from the StatCounter network of more than three million websites.

StatCounter provides a tool that enables the display of stats month by month for selected countries for mobile devices, and it charts what appears to be the dramatically rapid rise of iOS in Australia largely at the expense of BlackBerry. At the beginning of December 2009, BlackBerry commanded 58.63 percent of web accesses and iOS 30.99 percent but by the end of the month the two were level pegging at about 44 percent each.

By the end of January 2010 BlackBerry had plummeted to 8.6 percent and iOS had soared to 70.86 percent. Symbian also rose steadily from 6.2 percent at the beginning of December to 14.5 percent at the end of January 2010.

During February 2011 there was little change in market shares but by this time iOS had reached a massive share of almost 74 percent, with Android at 11-12 percent and Symbian at 9-8 percent and still declining. BlackBerry had fallen to below three percent. Android overtook Symbian in mid December 2010 at the nine percent mark  having overtaken BlackBerry in early October.

However a plot of accesses for the whole of 2010 shows widely fluctuating shares for BlackBerry that are almost exactly mirrored by those for iOS, which leads one to question the accuracy of the data. iTWire is seeking clarification from StatCounter.