A new report published by Quantcast shows the mobile Web grew 110 percent in the U.S., and 148 percent worldwide in 2009. Interestingly, the mobile Web still only makes up 1.26 percent of total U.S Web consumption, and a mere .99 percent worldwide- in other words, we still have a ways to go.
The growth was magnified by the proliferation of “full-web” -enabled smartphones over the past year, making the lines between the traditional Web and the mobile Web blurry at best. Unsurprisingly, the iPhone/iPod Touch accounted for most of the growth in the U.S., but Android made the largest advances over the past year, overtaking RIM’s Blackberry with 12 percent of North American mobile Web pageviews.
The growing popularity of the Android operating system is apparent with Motorola’s Droid, just one of many Android-based devices on the market, which helped Motorola gain a 10x improvement in North American mobile Web share in 2009- despite it being launched late in the year.
Still, Apple finished the year with a commanding lead of 65 percent total market share of mobile Web access, though only 41 percent of which was attributed to the iPhone. The iPod Touch accounted for 24 percent of Apple’s total market share even though it’s not connected to mobile data networks. This fact alone proves the mobile Web could still grow by leaps and bounds even without wireless carrier connections.
With 2010 being aptly dubbed the “year of mobile,” the growth we’re expected to see should be even more substantial. While Android and the iPhone seem to garner the most attention, Blackberry devices, Java-based devices (which still hold significant market share in countries such as Africa) and even Palm’s WebOS might continue to rise in popularity and market share this year. Either way, it will be fun to watch the infinite battle brewing between everyone involved.
