Not that this should come as much of a surprise, but new data out today shows Apple's mobile Safari is bar none the dominant player in mobile browsing. The iOS version of Safari is up by a wide margin in terms of mobile browser usage share over competitors.
So how does Apple's browser stack up as of late? Mobile Safari is used for more than 50 percent of the browsing done on mobile devices (53 percent in August 2011). It has remained at, or near that number for the past several months. Interestingly, compared to its desktop leader counterpart in Internet Explorer, Safari isn't losing ground. In October 2010, Safari had 44.3 percent of the overall amount, having grown by just under nine percentage points in less than a year according to the statistics from Net Applications. Internet Explorer continues to drop, bleeding share to Google's Chrome.
It is important to keep in mind though that while Internet Explorer and mobile Safari are the default options that come with their respective hardware, Apple prevents any other browsers from getting on the platform. Users can't make any other browser the default option for opening links from other apps. Further, third-party browsers that you can grab from the App Store are still essentially Safari with feature and function differences.
On the plus side for Apple, by making Safari the lone player in the browser world on their iOS devices, users can maintain a uniform browsing experience across the board.
Another factor in Apple's lead in mobile browsing is the iPad. Cumulative sales of Android-powered tablets still do not match up with Apple's shipment volume, which gives a huge edge to mobile Safari.
Check out the official numbers below:
via The Apple Blog
Follow this article's author, Matthew Tilmann on Twitter
(Top image courtesy of mytechutopia.net)
