Safari Dominates Mobile Browsers, But Android Gains GroundSafari Dominates Mobile Browsers, But Android Gains Ground

In the mobile browser race, Apple's Safari maintains its lead by a wide margin, according to data from Netmarketshare.

Between December 2010 and October 2011, Safari's share of mobile browsing use rose from 49.17% to a crushing 62.17%. That means three out of five devices surfing the mobile Web are doing so via Apple's mobile browser. This figure, however, includes not only the Apple iPhone, but the iPad and the iPod Touch, as well. Netmarketshare did not break down the percentages for the three device types, which is a bit of a shame.

The Android browser's share in the mobile space has grown, too, but at a more modest pace. In December 2010, the Android browser held 11.5% of the mobile browser market. By October 2011--despite Android's meteoric rise to the top smartphone platform in the world--the Google-made mobile browser increased its share to only 18.65% of the market overall.

Android's rise in the mobile browser market can be attributed almost entirely to smartphones, as Android-based tablets have not exactly set the market on fire. (See the Xoom.)

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Android's rise in market share comes at Opera's expense. Opera saw its Opera Mini browser market share crumble from 26.49% in December 2010 down to 13.12% in October 2011. Opera Mini is a proxy-based browser that is used chiefly on feature phones. It compresses data in order to save data costs, but it doesn't offer the robust mobile browsing experience that the iOS and Android browsers do.

Opera Software makes a version of its Mini browser and the Opera Mobile browser available to the iOS and Android platforms, as well. The reason most likely contributing the Opera Mini's decline in market is the increase in percentage of smartphones in the market compared to feature phones, and the dropping cost of mobile data.

Rounding out the top mobile browsers, Nokia's Symbian browser managed to hold onto 2.55% of the browsing market in October 2011, down from 7.49% in December 2010. This drop in market share clearly reflects the Symbian platform's epic fall as a smartphone platform.

The BlackBerry browser controls 2.04% of the mobile browsing market. That's down from 2.9% in December 2010. Even last year, RIM's browsing market share was abysmal.

Netmarketshare says that 1.46% of the mobile browser market is owned by "other." Who falls into this category? Microsoft's Windows Phone/IE9 browser, for one, and HP's webOS browser, for two. These are the other two major smartphone platforms still in the market. For their share to fall into the "other" category speaks volumes about the adoption rate of these platforms.

After these two, you can also lump into that meager 1.46% the myriad browsers that are installed on feature phones around the world.

Bottom line, Apple is winning in the mobile browser space, even if it has lost traction in the smartphone space. Its three-pronged attack of the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch clearly shows that Apple's iOS-based devices remain popular with users despite Android's rise to the top.