Stats: iPhone/iPod browser share growing rapidly

The number of Americans browsing the web via the iPhone and iPod touch rose dramatically between December and March, according to StatCounter. The web tracking company reports that figures rose 64 percent in the period, from 0.14 to 0.23 percent of surfers; while the amount is dramatically smaller than that using desktop browsers such as Firefox or Internet Explorer, it is far in excess of some other cellular technologies, such as Nokia's. People browsing from Nokia devices represent just 0.01 percent of the US market.

Nokia is however dominant on a global basis, besting Apple at 0.25 percent versus 0.08. Returning to the US, StatCounter notes that the iPhone is more commonly used than the Touch, accounting for 0.18 percent of the browser market next to the Touch's 0.05. The Touch was, however, only launched by Apple in September of last year, and can only access the Internet from Wi-Fi hotspots. The American iPhone launched in June and additionally has mobile Internet access via EDGE.

Filed under: iPod, iPhone, industry
Other story tags: Nokia, iPod touch

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219977 03/18, 11:22am, EDT spoofing?

Could these numbers be due to the spoofing that folks were doing to grab BBC iPlayer content? Just curious.

posted by boomer0127

219980 03/18, 11:47am, EDT not BBC

Not everybody watches the BBC.

posted by bhuot

219990 03/18, 12:50pm, EDT Re: spoofing

No. Groups like these read logs from a group of varying web sites to gather their information. Spoofing for a particular site would have very little impact.

posted by testudo

219996 03/18, 1:56pm, EDT spoofing

Also the hack to access BBC's streams only works for those in the UK, and the hack as far as I was aware didn't spoof the browser but rather used the URL that the iPhone used to access the video - i.e. the PC/Mac didn't pretend to be using Safari on the iPhone. Hence this wouldn't have had any affect on these numbers.

posted by rytc

220035 03/18, 11:21pm, EDT thanks

for the clarification.

posted by boomer0127

220094 03/19, 2:56pm, EDT could this be anymore

of an empty statistic?

Seeing as how sales of iPhones and iPod Touch's are growing steady right now since last June - maybe it's because more and more new owners of these devices are actually getting to a comfort level with using tthem and are breaking away from the constant need to connect up thru a desktop computer to check things such as eMail and chat with their pals?

nah - it's just a coincidence_

posted by UberFu

221338 04/04, 12:23pm, EDT Touch can get wifi access

The Touch can use wifi so if you get one of these and use usb to your cell phone that is supported you can use wifi to get online: http://www.cradlepoint.com/phs300/phs300.php

posted by celtsune

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