U.S. iPad growth is staggering after only one year.
My friend and mobile media veteran, Trevor Hamilton at Velti, shared some iPad stats with me from Apple Insider about web browsing on various smartphone and tablet platforms. Yes, I guess we ARE mobile geeks if we are sharing iPad market stats over breakfast.
When combined, iOS accounts for a whopping 60.7 percent of U.S. mobile browsing. That’s almost twice that of Android. Blackberry accounts for 6.9 % while Symbian, Windows Mobile and webOS combine for less than a half a percent.
The implications for publishers and advertisers is obvious. This is iPad and iPhone Safari web browser traffic, not applications. If you’re not optimizing content, advertising and existing infrastructure for these iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices, you are missing an immediate opportunity and ensuring you’ll have to play catch up as it continues to scale. Will it continue to grow?
How will iPad scale?
Apple Insider provides additional compelling stats: Apple has already sold more than 25 million iPads in just the first 14 months. They go on to quote analyst Gene Munster with Piper Jaffray, who put the numbers even more in perspective, determining that Apple is selling about 87,000 iPads per day.
And how does mobile browser usage compare to app usage? Here’s some data from Comscore that has mobile browsing in a slight lead.
Get busy, people! If you’re on the sidelines and ignoring iPad, iPhone and other mobile devices, you’re blowing it.