In February 2010 we took a look at the state of the mobile web and how various platforms were performing by country. 12 months have now passed so we thought it would be interesting to take another look at the this space and see how things have changed. Additionally with the recent events that have taken place across North Africa and the emergence of social media and mobile internet as tools of the revolution we thought it would be interesting to take a look at those countries and see what the predominant platforms in use are.
(click for the full image)
We can see that in countries such as Egypt and Tunisia Nokia (more commonly associated with legacy handsets) dominates. It seems that in developing markets such as Brazil, India, China, Egypt, Tunisia and Russia Nokia still holds the top spot (in Egypt the numbers are as high as 80%).
When we look at more developed markets such as North America, Europe, Australia and Japan we see that it is the newer players such as Apple that lead the way. Interestingly USA has a reasonably even split between Apple, Google’s Android and Blackberry.
In many of the developed markets Google’s Android has made impressive gains in the last 12 months, often at the expense of Apple’s iOS. For example in the USA Apple’s market share has dropped from 53% 12 months ago to 35% today, while Google’s Android has gone from 12% to 27%. In the UK we see a similar picture with Apple dropping from 55% to 42% and Android gaining 10% during the same period.
Nokia has seen large drops in China over the last 12 months, from 80% to 59% with newer mobile devices such as those from Apple gaining ground. Could this be a sign of development, will other countries such as Egypt and Tunisia follow suit as they develop their economies? Would the revolutions in those countries have looked any different if the proportion of smart phones was higher, perhaps leading to an even greater exchange of information? Possibly, however what is certain is that Apple has lost market share in the majority of developed markets over the last 12 months as new devices have entered the market and competition has increased.
Matt on 
March 1st, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Great post, really interesting to see the rise of Android in the US, and the huge share Blackberry has in the UK. Does the Apple usage reflect iPad as well as iPhone?
March 1st, 2011 at 4:11 pm
great graphic, but it is not correct. It states Mobile Operating Systems, but then I see Samsung, SonyEricsson, Nokia, which are brands. It needs to be Symbian, Android, iOS, Windows Mobile and Windows Phone 7, Bada, …
March 1st, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Hey Sam & Alex, glad you liked it (or at least the visuals
). Yes Apple means iOS, Nokia means Symbian, we simplified the names so it could be understood by a broader audience as we felt many people would not know what iOS was but would understand Apple
March 2nd, 2011 at 12:50 am
Hi Gregory, nice graphic, do you have any data about Italy? Last year it was shown. Thanks.
March 2nd, 2011 at 4:00 pm
Hi Donato, unfortunately we could only squeeze a limited number of countries onto the infographic and had to leave Italy out. This time we looked at mobile OS rather than mobile browser so the numbers are not directly comparable with the previous infographic but for Italy iOS (Apple) takes the top spot with 47.7% a drop of 6% over the last 12 months. SymbianOS (Nokia) comes second with 28.2% a drop of just over 6% over the last 12 months. The biggest climber was Android which now places third taking 12% of the market.
March 2nd, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Hi Gregory, many thanks for the information provided about Italy, I just updated my blogpost
March 7th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
would love to see absolute figures. would tell the real story of volumes, not just proportions
March 8th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Hi Gregory – do you have any data on New Zealand – that smaller country to the right of Australia
March 9th, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Hi Alisa, New Zealand, yes I think I’ve heard of it…
iOS (Apple) currently hold the top spot with 65.6% of the market, a drop of 2.2% on last year. Android places second with 14.7% of the market an increase of 13.2% in the last 12 months and SymbianOS (Nokia) has 9.3% a drop of 7.1%
Hi Lerican, I’m afraid we only have percentages
March 10th, 2011 at 1:13 am
Nice work.
March 10th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
thanks Gregory
March 18th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
Disappointed that the statistics for Canada are missing this year.
March 20th, 2011 at 8:34 pm
Hi Gregory do u know something about Colombia – South America? Nice post and beatiful infographic… Congrats
March 21st, 2011 at 3:52 pm
Glad you liked the infographic, I’ll pass your comments onto our creative team
Currently in Columbia Blackberry OS holds the top spot with 41.2%, Symbian OS (Nokia) has 24.5% and iOS (Apple) comes in third with 14.1% of the market
March 24th, 2011 at 6:53 pm
What’s the source for this information?
March 25th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Are you really sure Blackberry is just present at US and UK market? this is a kind of strange…
April 7th, 2011 at 7:00 am
Greg, if Nokia mobile market share in India is 59% then how it holds up OS market share of 71%.
April 7th, 2011 at 9:43 am
Hi acupunc: the data is from http://gs.statcounter.com/