Mobile browsers: Apple vs Android
Akamai released its Q1 2013 State of the Internet Report recently, showing that Android Webkit is the most popular mobile browser in the world.
Akamai’s State of the Internet Report gathers data from the Akamai Intelligent Platform, and provides insight into key global statistics including connection speeds, attack traffic, and network connectivity and availability.
The report used data from across several hundred top-tier sites delivering content through Akamai. It should be noted that most of these sites are focused on a U.S. audience.
According to the Q1 2013 report, Android Webkit was responsible for 41% of requests on cellular networks in the first half of the quarter, while Apple Mobile Safari drove 38% of requests.
The gap between the two browsers widened considerably in the second half of the quarter, with Android Webkit responsible for nearly 44% of requests, and Apple Mobile Safari dropping to just over 30%.
Mobile browser requests
The increase in irregularity seen in the graph above from around February 2013 is due to changes Akamai said it is introducing in its data source.
Akamai said that planned back-end data collection and processing improvements should expand the sample set beyond the U.S. This will let them provide more global and geo-specific views of the data, as well as more granular insight into browser versions, Akamai said.
An initial release of this updated data source occurred in mid-February 2013, and Akamai said it drove some significant changes in adoption levels.
Looking at Akamai’s graph of mobile browsers seen across all networks, the changes made to the data source seemed to have a very different effect:
Mobile Browsers Seen Across All Networks, Akamai Q1 2013
The updated data did not cause much variation in the percentage of requests from Apple Mobile Safari which came in at just under 60% for the first half of the quarter, and just over 60% for the second half of the quarter.
Conversely, Android usage spiked with the data update, averaging just over 20% for the first half of the quarter, and just under 33% for the second half. Interestingly, the “Others” category appears to see a decline that mirrors the increase seen for Android Webkit.
Akamai noted that this could possibly indicate its new device characterisation engine with the updated data set caused it to start classifying a particular user agent as Android Webkit, where it had previously been counted as part of the Others category.
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