Smartphones & Tablets 2011 status in Belgium

Before to have a look at the iPad’s market share on mobile traffic in Belgium, here is a quick reminder of how Google Analytics measures mobile traffic. For Apple products, Google Analytics distinguishes between iPods, iPhones and iPads. This is not the case for Android devices. The alternative is to segment traffic coming from Android devices according to screen size since tablets naturally have bigger screens. For Q1 2010, there were no iPads. One year later, iPads are accountable for more than a third of Belgium’s mobile internet traffic. Meanwhile, traffic coming from Android smartphones and iPhones was growing constantly. As an example, traffic from iPhones quadrupled between Q1 2010 and Q1 2011 while Android traffic multiplied by 30!

iPhone and Android trends in Belgium?

As we have just seen, in terms of tablets today, the iPad is virtually competition free. But what about smartphones? Early 2010, the iPhone was accountable for more than half of Belgium’s mobile internet traffic (57%). Early 2011, this share came down to 35% despite the fact that overall iPhone visits quadrupled in a year! Two elements explain this trend. First of all, the iPad’s arrival: it seems obvious that a tablet and its bigger screen size is more suitable to surf the web. Secondly, Android’s very strong growth: in the first quarter of 2010, Android was only accountable for 4% of mobile internet traffic. Twelve months later, this percentage quadrupled to over 16%, and the amount of visits from Android devices was multiplied by 30.

The lion’s share

Today, Apple alone represents 78% of mobile internet traffic in Belgium! Google’s Android has 16%, and the rest of the market (Microsoft, ‘Symbian’, RIM) shares a meager 6%. What about tomorrow? Apple will remain on top for the remaining of 2011, and probably for much of 2012. Android smartphones are gaining market shares but barely represent more than half of the iPhone’s share. Android tablets (and a tablet optimized Android) have only just arrived on the Belgian market this second quarter 2011. We will have to wait till the end of the year to see them become as popular as smartphones. As for other competitors, they seem to be more than a step behind. The Nokia Microsoft collaboration won’t bear fruits until early 2012. RIM recently released his Playbook but seems a bit isolated in the market. This leave the way wide open for Apple and Android to grab all of the market shares … as it is already the case today …

PS. All the data are coming from our clients' Google Analytics account. It is a representative sample. It does NOT contain any confidential information. These figures are 'relative' and not absolute (market shares) and have been aggregated in order to maintain the highest confidentiality that Semetis cheers. Full Semetis article with graphs available here.