iPhone, Android overtake feature phones

The rise of the iPhone and Android have helped smartphone use virtually double in the past year, AdMob said today. Thanks to Apple and Google emphasizing apps, traffic in the group surged 193 percent between February 2009 and 2010; smartphones represented 48 percent of all traffic as of last month. Such a switch helped push the usage share of regular cellphones down by almost half to 35 percent, even though traffic actually grew.

iPhones have the largest share of worldwide smartphone traffic at exactly 50 percent, but Android has a disproportionately high 24 percent. Symbian's age and slumping popularity have seen it fall from 43 percent a year ago to just 18 percent today. The Motorola Droid was second only to the iPhone in popularity among individual smartphones.

Among regular phones, Samsung had the largest usage share while Nokia ran second.

Mobile Internet devices, or online-capable handhelds without phone features, have seen a fourfold jump in use and now make up 17 percent of all traffic. The category is uniquely dominated by Apple, according to analysts: the iPod touch makes up 93 percent of all traffic where the Nintendo DSi, Sony PSP and other, often Linux-based MIDs occupy just slivers of the remaining field. Though not directly explained, the online use is owed mostly to Apple's treatment of the web browser and apps as an important component of the iPod where Nintendo and Sony consider these secondary features at best.

By Electronista Staff