Websites on the go

When we talk about websites on mobile devices the iPhone almost immediately becomes the focus of conversation… but why? It’s not just because designers like Macs that we focus on Apple’s mobile product above other devices. The basic figures seem to indicate that the focus is misplaced: iPhone accounts for barely 15% of mobile phone sales worldwide (http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2010/02/01/the-iphone-grabsloses-market-share/) while Nokia is edging up to 40% of sales (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia) . But as far as mobile web is concerned, the story is distinctly different.

Apple’s iPhone controls the dominant position in terms of mobile web usage. On a worldwide level you can see that around 60% of mobile web users are on the iPhone.

But shouldn’t we still consider other devices? It might make sense globally. But for an Australian market? Well let’s look at the local usage patterns:

In Australia, iPhone accounts for a staggering 85-90% of the mobile web market. The other users are fragmented between Symbian (Nokia) devices (5%), Blackberry (2%) and on.

Mobile sites should certainly be designed with other devices in mind – but with such a staggering dominance with a particular browser – it would be a mistake not to consider device-specific enhancements (that gracefully degrade for non-supporting devices).