Android overtakes Opera Mini as the most popular mobile web browser

Google’s Android has found its way into the lives of millions of people across the world.  Now, Android has achieved a new milestone by outperforming Opera Mini. As per the figures compiled for the month of February 2012, the Android Browser has overtaken Opera Mini.

Statcounter, the popular web traffic measuring tool takes the count for the iPhone and iPod touch separately. It is observed that Apple users’ web surfing is more than Android users’ web surfing. The internet surfing volume on Android based phones is less than the overall internet surfing volume on Apple’s devices. Google has ambitious plans to bring the micro version of Chrome to attract mobile users. If it has to achieve success in this sphere, a lot will depend on how Google will encourage Android users to surf the net more and more.

                                             Image Via: StatCounter

What is surprising is the amount of traffic that the Nokia browser still manages to generate. Internet Explorer Mobile, Microsoft’s browser on Windows Phone 7 hasn’t really managed to leave it’s mark, while the Dolfin browser on Samsung’s Bada devices actually registers as a unique browser and hasn’t been grouped into the “Others” tab.

Image Via: StatCounter

It is interesting to know that Opera Mini is likely to improve its position with the new version that is going to be launched soon. Even though Opera is not manufacturing handsets, the company is able to manage good number of customers because of its active promotional measures it has managed. For example, the company is able to strike deal with major manufacturers like Samsung and Nokia to offer its browser as part of the features offered by the handset. As in the graph above, which shows the browser data for the same one year period for India, Opera still rules, with Nokia a distant second. Both these browsers have been dropping web share though, and it’ll be interesting to see what this data set will show next year.

Source: The Next Web