Mobile Safari Gains Market Share

StatCounter reports that usage of the Mobile Safari Web browser included on the iPhone and iPod touch in the United States increased by 64 percent between December and March.

The browser's share of the global Internet browser market more than doubled in the same period, from 0.03 percent to 0.08 percent.

From December to March, Mobile Safari's browser market share in the U.S. jumped from 0.14 percent to 0.23 percent. StatCounter said that the iPhone is now the number one mobile browser in the United States, and number two globally -- Nokia still leads in the global market, 0.25 percent to 0.08 percent -- however, the iPhone is only available in select international markets.

StatCounter founder and CEO Aodhan Cullen attributes the dramatic rise to people trying out new Christmas gifts. "The key message is that iPhone is more than living up to its claims of being a user friendly Internet browser, unlike many other cell phones," he said.

StatCounter measures browser use by analyzing pageloads per month through a network of two million Web sites. A sample of 372 million page views was used for the analysis.