Mobile Browsing Trends

Stephen McCance September 2, 2014

Read our article on the latest trends in mobile browsing in 2014.

As of March 2014, we spend, on average, 2 hours and 42 minutes of our day (up 4 minutes from last year) on mobile devices according to app analytics provider Flurry. However, only 14% of this time (22 minutes and 68 seconds for those of you that are interested) is spent on mobile browsers.

Using the internet on your phone is second nature to most of us. Whether you’re Apple, Windows or Android, likelihood is that, on the go, you use your phone to browse the internet from time to time (or, if you’re like me, constantly!).

For me, the first iPhone in 2007 was the first time that I was introduced to browsing on mobile devices. More tech savvy people however, were using mobile browsing 10 years earlier when Unwired Planet (who later became Openwave) and STNC Ltd. bought out their browsers to mobile devices.

Since then, mobile devices have changed and developed to include a whole host of different browsers that come pre-installed or can be downloaded from respective stores.

For Android, the pre-installed app for internet browsing is, the rather originally named “internet browser”. A lot of android users have opted for different browsers however, with the top 3 browsers (by downloads) are Google Chrome, Opera Mini, and Firefox. Out of these, Chrome is far out in front with 500 million downloads, it works well with browsers on computers with sync access and password remembrance options. Next up, Opera Mini, which is favoured by those who want to avoid Google, is the second most popular at 100 million downloads. Lastly, a lot of the browser apps have around 10 million downloads, but an browser app often mentioned is Dolphin for it’s vast array of features including greater voice control than the other two and a better feel on touch screen than the other two according to reviews.

The graph shows that time spent on Safari is around the same as Android and iOS users spend across all the browsing platforms. A quick straw poll reflects this, with a clear majority of iOS users doing their internet browsing on safari (71% also if you’re interested in that sort of thing!).