APPLE DOMINATES MOBILE AND HTML SITE TRAFFIC

AdMob (www.AdMob.com) released mobile metrics for April which showed that 43% of mobile requests to mobile sites and 65% of mobile requests to HTML sites originated from iPhones. iPhone represents an estimated 8% of the total installed base. AdMob reports that 3% of mobile requests to mobile sites and 9% of mobile requests to HTML sites originated from Android phones, which have an estimated 1% of the handset market. iPhone and Android devices are the only platforms for which share of traffic to mobile and HTML sites exceed their handset share.

The relation between mobile traffic to mobile sites versus HTML sites is reversed for Symbian and RIM devices. Symbian handsets, which have 52% of the market, generate 36% and 7% of the requests to mobile sites and to HTML sites, respectively. RIM handsets, which represent 17% of the market, generate 9% and 3% of the requests to mobile sites and to HTML sites, respectively.

Windows handsets, which represent 12% of the handset market, originate 3% and 6% of requests to mobile and HTML sites, respectively. Palm, which represents 2% of the handset market, originates 2% of requests to both mobile and HTML sites.

One conclusion from this information is that development of mobile sites is much more important for publishers who are interested in reaching Symbian and RIM users, and much more important in regions, such as Europe, where Symbian devices predominate. HTML sites are much more important when targeting iPhone and Android users. We think it is likely that mobile web sites will fall out of favor with publishers as the share of more-capable Internet handsets increases.
-Stuart Whitaker