31 percent of mobile usage is via wifi

David Harper CEO of PercentMobile has shared some mobile traffic figures with the people on Mobile Monday and we thought they were so good we’d share them with you.

The PercentMobile figures come from analysis of the last 6 months aggregate UK mobile Web Usage from a sample of over 2.5 million UK uniques, over 5000 sites in their network on a wide selection of devices from feature phones, smartphones, and non-phone devices (PS2’s, PSPs, Chumbies etc).

Data by Operating System
1/  Apple iOS: 45.2%
2/  RIM OS: 27.5%
3/  Proprietary OS: 12.8%
4/  Symbian OS: 6.3%
5/ Android OS: 3.7%
6/ Others: 4.5%

We’re quite shocked that BlackBerry is quite so high in their stats, compared to Nokia, as Nokia still has a good market position in the UK, but this could be explained by Harper’s explanation of their platform which he says “does a better job then most sorting out feature phones and Opera & BlackBerry traffic (originating networks NOT proxy) so our number will be different from other mobile analytic companies.” It could also be a result of the sites on their network which may skew more towards BlackBerry users.

Data by Device Manufacturer
1/ Apple: 45.2%
2/ BlackBerry: 27.5%
3/ Nokia: 8.6%
4/ Samsung: 6.6%
5/ SonyEricsson: 5.4%
6/ Others: 6.7%

What’s more interesting than the standard handset and OS data above is the little snippets of other data revealed by the survey. PercentMobile found that 31% of all UK Mobile Web Usage is over WiFi, which impolies that much of the web browsing we do on mobile is still done from a static position (work,home, Starbucks) rather than when we’re roaming, and this is something that too many people forget when they’re designing a mobile site.

UK mobile Web Usage is:
1/ 74.3% Smartphones
2/ 14.5% Feature Phone
3/ 10.9% Non-Phones
4/ 0.3% Undetermined

And this tells us that it’s not always a good idea to assume that the device that people are viewing on will have the ability to text and call, one in ten won’t be able to call, and three in 20 are going to be on a device that’s probably displaying your data on a screen so small you need a microscope to read it. The good news is three-quarters will be getting a decent experience.

Lastly here’s the networks

Top 5 UK Networks
1/ 02
2/ Orange
3/ Vodafone
4/ T-Mobile
5/ Virgin Media (WiFi)

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