Mobile Internet in Belgium in 2011

Continuous and exponential growth for the mobile Internet in Belgium:

Traffic coming from mobile devices has tripled between January and December 2011 !

We calculate mobile traffic based on the Mobile reports in Google Analytics. These concern online traffic coming from devices labelized as mobiles. This concerns tablets and smartphones.

Early 2011, we reached the 1% milestone of online traffic coming from tablets and smartphones. In the third quarter 2011, this number went up to 2%. By the end of 2011 - November and December - the 3% milestone had been reached.

Apple and Android lead the rise in mobile Internet

Apple remains the market leader with it’s iPads, iPhones and iPods. These devices represent 75% of mobile internet traffic in 2011. Android remains an outsider with 21% of the shares.

In terms of growth, the iPad and Android have been the biggest expansion. Although visits originating from iPhones increased by about 48% between Q1 and Q4, this grownth seems rather limited in comparison to those of iPads and Android devices. These two litterally explosed with respectively 246% and 291% growth between Q1 and Q4 2011.

Android and an excellent end of the year

Android has known a nice growth in Belgium from the second part of the year. Android represented around 15% of traffic share in the first semester, and it got beyond 25% during the second semester.

iOS, Android and … nothing else

In 2011, mobile Internet traffic was shared between Apple (75%) and Android (21%). This only left 4% of scraps for the others to share. Indeed, although other platforms accounted for 10% of mobile traffic in 2010, their share fell to a little less than 4% in 2011. Microsoft, Nokia and Blackberry are being swept of the market !

It is quite possible that Android will rise above 30% early 2012, and reach about 50% at the end of the year. We can imagine a scenario where Apple and Android each get 45% while the new Microsoft-Nokia alliance could grasp 10% of the traffic share. Should Apple democratize its iPad with smaller, cheaper models, it could remain predominant with around 60%, leaving 35% for Android and 5% for all others.

After the 3%, the 6% are now in the line of sight.

Early last summer, at the end of Q2, we predicted that mobile traffic would reach 3% of total internet traffic by the end of the year. 6 months later, our prediction came true !

It is now certain that mobile internet traffic will reach 5% in 2012, and maybe even 6%. The ever expanding choice of tablets and the variety of formats and prices should cause many Belgian consumers to go mobile in 2012. Given the impact of the iPad on online surfing behavior, we can only imagine how it will grow once mobile devices become more affordable.

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