Mobile browser war: Apple vs Android vs Microsoft vs Opera

Akamai released its Q4 2012 State of the Internet Report in April 2013, showing that Android Webkit and Mobile Safari are the most popular mobile browsers.

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 Q4 report Android Webkit was responsible for 35.3% of requests on cellular networks, while Apple Mobile Safari drove 32.6% of requests. Opera Mini usage generally remained above 20% across the quarter.

When the scope is expanded to all network (not just those identified as “cellular”), the distribution is markedly different.

Here Apple Mobile Safari remained responsible for the vast majority of requests, peaking above 60% each Sunday during the fourth quarter

Android Webkit remains solidly in second place across most of the quarter, with average usage of 21.7%.

Microsoft’s Mobile Explorer usage appeared to see sharp growth during the latter half of December, though it only averaged 12.6% usage for the fourth quarter.

Opera Mini and Nokia browsers rounded out the top five, though both had fairly erratic usage patterns across the quarter, accounting, on average, for 4.5% and 1.1% of usage respectively.