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Q2 2011 mobile browser stats for 12 countries 1/2

It’s time for the quarterly mobile browser statistics from 12 selected countries according to StatCounter. Remember that the methodology of the detection changed in late April. This is noticeable in most countries, and especially in India and Brazil.

This post treats the first six countries; the second six will appear next week. Your donation for keeping this series up and running would be much appreciated.

New feature: all browsers

This entry has a new feature. From now on, I will also give the shares for all browsers, desktop or mobile, for countries where the mobile share is at least 20%. This quarter those countries are Nigeria and India.

In four or five years, browser stats where the major mobile browsers vie with the major desktop ones will become completely normal, and it’s good to give web developers a preview of what’s going to happen.

Overview

First the customary overview, and as usual we’re going to treat the countries in order of mobile share of total website visits. Note that South Korea has jumped ahead of the US and UK by doubling its mobile share from 5 to 10%.

Opera has become Mexico’s largest browser, and BlackBerry has reconquered that position in the UK. In Nigeria, Opera has become the largest browser even if we count the desktop ones.

Mexico’s huge 23% volatility is pretty incomprehensible to me. Brazil’s is caused by the StatCounter detection revision; both Obigo and Jasmine have large shares there, and that explains 13 of the 21 points.

Not visible in this table is the fact that Android growth in the developed countries is pretty much flattening out, although the browser starts to gain ground in some developing countries.

Also not visible is the emergence of IE on the US radar. A modest 1%, but this is still the best news Microsoft has had on the browser front for a while.

Nigeria

Nigeria again grows its mobile percentage of all website visits; it’s now nearly at 40%. This growth won’t stop any time soon; the question is more how much share the desktop browsers will retain.

When it comes to browsers Opera’s dominance is so huge that it isn’t funny any more. 90% of 39% equals an overall market share of 35% for Opera.

All Nigerian browsers

Here are the Nigerian figures if we drop the distinction between mobile and desktop browsers. Opera is the largest browser, period; even without its desktop share. Firefox and IE shed prodigious amounts of market share because they don’t matter in the mobile race. Chrome keeps its position by increasing its share of the desktop market.

The 10% volatility is mostly due to the continuing switch from desktop to mobile.

India

The changed methodology is clearly visible in the Indian statistics, where no less than seven browsers have entered the fray. Their gain comes from Opera (and from NetFront due to the StatCounter bug), but not from Nokia. One of the newcomers is Android; I expect it to grow steadily in the next few quarters. As to the others, it’s too early to tell.

The share of mobile browsing in all browsing is exploding here, too, although India is still a few quarters behind Nigeria. Here, too, the question is how much share the desktop will retain.

All Indian browsers

And here are all Indian browsers without the distinction between desktop and mobile. Opera is still the fourth browser here, but with 17% and not its customary 3%. NetFront is larger than Safari desktop. Not much, but still.

If the present trends continue it won’t be long before Opera is India’s largest browser, too.

Indonesia

The main story in Indonesia is that Android has arrived with 3% share to the detriment of most other browsers. Other than that there are some slight fluctuations that don’t mean much.

Indonesia doesn’t see the growth of the mobile over the desktop web that Nigeria and India are seeing. I’d love to explain why that is the case, certainly in the light of this report, but I have no idea.

South Korea

South Korea jumps past the US and UK in mobile vs. desktop share, which has doubled from 5 to 10%. This makes South Korea the most mobile of the developed countries.

When it comes to browsers Android’s dominance is so huge that it isn’t funny any more. This is caused by Samsung’s highly succesful Android lines, although it remains curious that the other Samsung browsers don’t have any market share to speak of in South Korea. Apparently Koreans only buy luxury phones to surf with.

US

In the US the long-awaited iPhone vs. Android battle is finally breaking loose. BlackBerry has been relegated firmly to third position, and Android has grown sufficiently to become a true threat to Safari somewhere later this year. Interestingly, the decline of Android’s growth in mature markets is not yet really taking place in the US.

I’d say that Android passes Safari somewhere around the end of Q3, so that it becomes visible in this series in Q4, but that is mostly educated guesswork.

Curiously, Nokia doubles its market share in spite of being irrelevant in the US phone market. I’d say this is caused by the few US Symbian users starting to take their surfing seriously.

And IE Mobile passes the threshold for the first time. It will be interesting to see if its market share grows, or if its appearance is due solely to my changed methodology.

UK

In the UK BlackBerry once more takes the lead, rather surprisingly, when it grew while Safari simultaneously declined. Android’s growth has almost stopped, and it doesn’t seem likely it can challenge the two top browsers this year.

Next week we’ll look at the other six countries.