The Safari web browser is the clear winner when you look at the usage of all web browsers as presented in this 2 year comparison of browsers, but there's more to the 31.12% as shown in that Nugget than just browser usage. There's a lot of mobile usage.The last time I reported mobile statistics was for the December 2012. As you know, the holiday season is the most active time of year for retail jewelers, and July and August are the slowest months of the year for retail jewelers.
The browser measurements I sampled last week and this week are from the July-August 2013 period. I found these to be very interesting.
REMINDER: These statistics are for the Retail Jeweler Industry Only.
Total visitors using mobile 35.85%
During December 2012 this number was 30.44%. I'm estimating that we would see a spike as high as 40% for the Holiday 2013 season.
Now let me break down the individual browser numbers...
Safari on mobile: 23.23%
Safari on desktop: 7.30%
I found it interesting that my tracking only saw Macintosh desktop users during the sample period. Although the iPhone is the clear winner for mobile devices, the desktop king is Windows.
IE on mobile: 0.21%
IE on desktop: 28.53%
Another interesting point here is that the IE on mobile was actually the Windows Mobile Phone.
Chrome on mobile: 2.36%
Chrome on desktop: 15.01%
Digging deeper into those two numbers, I found that of ALL the Chrome users only 10.7% was found on Androids and 2.9% on iPhones. Windows was the platform winner here with 75.6%.
Firefox on mobile: 0.07%
Firefox on desktop: 12.46%
Firefox struggles for popularity on a mobile device, which I agree with because I have several frustrations trying to use it myself on mobile. Firefox is most popular on a Windows desktop with 79.5% of its usage there.
So what should you make of these numbers?
Mobile is rising faster and faster. Microsoft is seriously trying to push their Windows 8 platform which is designed for tablets. They are hoping that casual users will eventually upgrade to some type of tablet PC running Windows 8 which means a large percentage of those 28.53% of IE on desktop users could suddenly become mobile users.
Even if Microsoft doesn't have their way, smartphones are still taking over everyday web browsing. As the Holiday 2013 season draws near, you need to consider how your website looks on mobile. Take your own website for a test drive today on your own smartphone. If you find your site clunky, you can bet your customers will find it absolutely disgusting.
