iPhone and Safari are dominating smartphone web usage

It is the beginning of the month again and you know what that means: NetApplications Web Marketshare reports. While the desktop marketshare was pretty stagnant (OK, Apple lost a few tenths of a percentage), all eyes turned to their Mobile Marketshare numbers where Apple's  iPhone turned out some pretty eye-popping numbers. According to their data, iPhone was responsible for 2/3rds of all mobile data browsing!

That seems a little high so I should throw in some quantifications.  Blackberry, which sells many more devices than iPhone, fits into the "other 2.75%".  This is because most Blackberries use the default WAP browser instead of the HTML version which doesn't register with NetApplications.

Also, Android has been out for a little over half of a year on a smaller network in fewer locations than iPhone and has already gobbled up 6.15% and climbing rapidly according to NetApplications.  Android is now tied with Symbian's (who have been around for much, much longer) marketshare.  They'll likely pass Windows Mobile in the coming months.

The JavaME category which is second only to iPhone is a bit of a surprise and is probably led by the popular Sidekick Hiptop device.

From there, the numbers get a little fuzzy.  Below, you'll see that Mobile Safari carries 77% of the browser Marketshare.  Correct me if I am wrong, but the iPhone is the only smartphone that uses Safari, isn't it?  

Could they be including iPod Touch in here?  Maybe the Webkit browsers that Symbian and Android use register as their Webkit cousin, MobileSafari?  Some clarification is obviously warranted.

In any case, it should be noted that the mobile web is dominated by Safari/Webkit.  Almost 80% of the marketshare is very significant.  For Mobile devices, Webkit/Safari is the, erm,  iPod of mobile browsers.

It is also interesting to see Opera Mini passing Mobile IE (which is the default browser on most of the Opera audience's phones).

Of course, these are only statistics from a single source of web analytics and should be taken with a truckload of salt.