Study: iOS Tops Android Market Share, Browser Usage

In the wake of yesterday’s Apple event, in which Steve Jobs suggested Google’s daily activation numbers were inflated, prompting a terse response from Google, the research company Net Applications is weighing in with its own set of stats. Granted, studies of mobile market share come a dime a dozen, and often fail to take into account, say, the most recent product announcements. Those caveats aside, the  numbers suggest that iOS bests Android in both market share as well as mobile web browsing.

Interestingly, whereas the numbers showed that iOS devices had been trailing Android ones in market share, this began to shift around May of this year, accelerating in June, presumably when the iPhone 4 went on sale. (Perhaps, too, this shift includes the iPad’s rising momentum in late Spring). On the mobile web browsing side, Android always trailed iOS, but it seems that iOS gained an even bigger margin in that same May-June time frame. Again, the iPad’s strong sales, combined with the fact that the iPhone 4′s launch was, according to Apple, the strongest ever, could have something to do with it.

As we’ve said before, the balance of power between Android and iOS is tenuous, and the numbers are only part of the story. We’ll be curious to see how these numbers look at the end of the year, particularly when an onslaught of Android tablets will too be counted.