Smartphones, Tablets Account for About 7% of Web Traffic Now

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Almost 7% of the web traffic in the U.S. is coming from smartphones and tablets. As of August 2011, “the share of non-computer traffic for the U.S. stood at 6.8 percent,” reports ComScore, “with approximately two-thirds of that traffic coming from mobile phones, and tablets accounting for much of the remainder.” Guess which tablet grabbed the lion’s share of traffic?

Apple’s iPads accounted for a whopping 97.2 percent of tablet traffic in the U.S., and have even eclipsed iPhone traffic for the first time—46.8 percent versus 42.6 percent, respectively.

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Other notable stats: More than a third of phone traffic happened over Wi-Fi networks, 10 percent of tablet traffic happened over cellular connections, and about half of tablet owners have purchased things via their tablets.

And though Android smartphones have passed iPhones in terms of market share, Apple’s iOS platform still racks up more web traffic—fueled in large part by the iPad, which runs iOS.

Says ComScore:

“The iOS platform also accounts for the largest share of Internet traffic, measured in terms of browser-based page views, in the U.S. at present. When measuring market share of Internet traffic by platform, iOS accounted for more than half (58.5 percent) of the share of total non-computer traffic in the U.S. Android OS ranked second, delivering 31.9 percent of overall non-computer traffic in August. With iOS having a significantly higher share of traffic (58.5 percent) compared to its share of devices (43.1 percent), it suggests that iOS users are heavier-than-average consumers of Internet content.”

Two things that’ll be interesting to watch: How much, if any, will Apple be able to regain in smartphone market share now that the iPhone is available on Sprint, and how much will low-cost Android tablets such as Amazon’s Kindle Fire—which is already prompting other tablet makers to lower prices on their own tablets—be able to add to Android’s numbers?

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