Mobile browser statistics: WebKit on the rise, Opera losing share

Posted 2007-12-09 in Mobile Web by Johann.

Two months ago, I presented mobile browser statistics for my websites. The clear winner at that time was NetFront. Let’s do this again.

Mobile browser list

The top 15 mobile browsers, taken from the last four weeks of log files.

1. Mozilla/4.0 (PSP (PlayStation Portable); 2.00)

4004 requests. NetFront-based.

2. Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A109a Safari/419.3

338 requests.

3. Opera/9.50 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/4.0.9800/209; U; en)

270 requests.

4. Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3B48b Safari/419.3

232 requests.

5. Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaN95/11.0.026; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413

231 requests.

6. Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE90-1/07.24.0.3; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413

211 requests.

7. Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/2.0.6530/1724; en; U; ssr)

168 requests.

8. Opera/8.01 (J2ME/MIDP; Opera Mini/1.1.4948/hifi/tmobile/uk; SonyEricsson K510i; en; U; ssr)

167 requests

9. Opera/9.10 (Nintendo Wii; U; ; 1621; en)

134 requests

10. Mozilla/5.0 (iPod; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/3A110a Safari/419.3

124 requests.

11. Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8800/4.2.1 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/125

124 requests.

12. Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Symbian OS; Nokia N80/; 9712) Opera 8.65 [en]

123 requests.

13. Mozilla/5.0 (SymbianOS/9.2; U; Series60/3.1 NokiaE90-1/07.40.1.2; Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 ) AppleWebKit/413 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/413

107 requests.

14. Nokia6300/2.0 (05.50) Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1

96 requests.

15. HPiPAQhw6900/1.0/Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows CE; PPC; 240x240)

77 requests.

Raw numbers

Two months ago, I looked at 2242 requests.

1. NetFront: 1066 requests, 48 %
2. Opera Mini: 626 requests, 28 %
3. Opera: 390 requests, 17 %
4. AvantGo: 148 requests, 15 %
5. WebKit: 12 requests, < 1 %

This time, I looked at 6282 requests.

1. NetFront: 4004 requests, 63 %, up 15 %
2. WebKit: 1243 requests, 19 %, up 18 %
3. Opera Mini: 605 requests, 9 %, down 19 %
4. Opera: 257 requests, 4 %, down 13 %
5. Nokia: 96 requests, 1 %
6. IEMobile/Pocket Internet Explorer: 77 requests, 1 %

The verdict

• Whereas I could see a slow shift from Internet Explorer to Mozilla-based browsers on johannburkard.de, the mobile web changes a lot faster and more deeply.
• Microsoft’s mobile browsers are not popular at all, as are Gecko-based browsers. The mobile web looks like an anti-web from the browser perspective.
• The mobile web usage has almost tripled in two months on my sites.