Android Led Mobile Web Browsing Growth during Holiday Season

Internet surfing from mobile devices witnessed huge growth during this holiday season. Although mobile web browsing still only accounts for a small part of all web activities, major mobile operating systems have registered considerable gains in Internet usage between the last two months of 2009, according to the analysis by market tracking site Net Applications.

The use of mobile browser has grown from merely above half a percentage point in early 2009 to 1.3 percent in December. The biggest winner of the bunch is Google’s Android operating system, as it saw a whopping 54.8 percent jump from November to December, outpacing any other smartphone platforms in terms of Internet usage. Its impressive double-digit growth is even more than the gain that iPhone and BlackBerry combined together.

By comparison, the iPhone’s Safari browser made a 20.1 percent increase in usage, while the BlackBerry’s web browser, which is said to be inferior to browsers of other platforms, unexpectedly grew 22.2 percent. Symbian and Java ME trailed behind with 19 percent and 15.6 percent uptick respectively.

Analysts generally believe that Android’s sharp uplift in Internet surfing was driven by Verizon Wireless’s massive advertising campaign for the Motorola Droid, bringing runaway sales throughout the holidays. The popular Droid helped to raise consumers’ awareness of its open-source platform, and pushed the sales of Android powered handsets offered by other manufacturers like HTC and Samsung, such as HTC Droid Eris, Samsung Moment and Samsung Behold II. Apparently, these all contributed to the huge leap made by the Android browser.

In 2010, a large number of Android devices are expected to flood the smartphone industry. The emergence of these smartphones will very likely further accelerate its penetration into the mobile web browsing market in the future.

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