iPhone Doubles Browser Market Share After 3G Intro

The Safari browser on the iPhone has been garnering headlines for what, for a mobile device, is a relatively large market share. According to research firm Net Applications, the iPhone's browser market share has nearly doubled since June of this year, and rose 58% in the month of August.

The iPhone's market share in June was .16%. At the end of July, it was .19%. By the end of August, this had risen to .3%, nearly doubling since June and rising 58% in one month. Net Applications attributed the rise to the intro of the iPhone 3G.

According to the report,

"The release of the iPhone 3G has brought large gains in Web-browsing share. Prior to the launch, iPhone usage share had leveled off, but has since resumed its upward trend."

Click the above graph for more detail.

Net Applications' data also shows a continuing decline in IE usage, with market share dropping from 78.36% in October 2007 to 72.15% in August 2008. Meanwhile, Firefox market chare rose to 19.73% (from 14.97%), and Safari usage increased from 5.09% to 6.37%.

And here comes Chrome, right?

According to Net Applications, they gather their data in the following way:

We collect data from the browsers of site visitors to our exclusive on-demand network of live stats customers. The data is compiled from approximately 160 million visitors per month.