iPhone Increases Market Share in Mobile Browser Wars According to StatCounter

- StatCounter research finds iPhone is number one mobile browser in US and number two globally

- MS Internet Explorer faces close competition from open source Firefox

DUBLIN, Ireland--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apple has increased its share of the Internet browser market in the US by 64% between December and March according to StatCounter, which provides organisations and individuals with a free website visitor statistics tool.(1) Globally iPhone/iTouch has more than doubled its share of the Internet browser market from 0.03% to 0.08%.

“The key message is that iPhone is more than living up to its claims of being a user friendly Internet browser, unlike many other cell phones”

In March iPhone and iTouch increased their share of the total browser market in the US from 0.14% in December to 0.23% according to StatCounter which tracks in excess of nine billion pageloads per month over its network of two million websites. If one excludes iTouch from the figures then iPhone’s market share of Internet browsing in the US (0.18%) is still well ahead of Nokia (0.01%). However, Nokia still maintains a significant lead over Apple in the global market with 0.25% to 0.08%.

“The key message is that iPhone is more than living up to its claims of being a user friendly Internet browser, unlike many other cell phones,” commented Aodhan Cullen, founder and CEO of StatCounter. He said that iPhone web browsing peaked in the US on Christmas Day at 0.07%. “Presumably this was due to people trying out their new Christmas present combined perhaps with not accessing their PCs that day.”

The StatCounter analysis finds that Microsoft Internet Explorer still leads the browser market overall with 44.5% market share in the US. But it is facing real competition from open source based Firefox which grew to 43.9% of the US browser market. Globally Internet Explorer is well ahead at 59% with Firefox on 33%.

The StatCounter analysis was based on a sample of 372 million page views globally from December 07 to March 08, including 71 million US page views.

(1) Note: Figures include iPhone and iTouch

For information on this real-time, user-friendly, and free visitor stats tool, please visit www.statcounter.com