61% of Mobile Devices Accessing the Web Run iOS

When it comes to mobile platforms, there are tons of ways to measure success. Android leads in market share, iOS leads in customer satisfaction, and Windows Phone, well Windows Phone isn’t posing any major threats yet, but it has potential.

Perhaps one of the most precise ways of measuring the real-world impact of a platform is to gauge how many users are actually using it. And what better way to do that than by tracking which mobile OS accesses the web the most?

The Loop points to a recently published report from NetApplications, a mobile analytics firm. The company tracks over 40,000 websites and their traffic data via its network, and frequently publishes its findings.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that NetApplications’ data showed that 61% of mobile devices accessing the web are running iOS. Apple dominates the tablet market, and the competition still doesn’t have an answer for its iPod touch.

Android users came in second, garnering 18.9% of mobile web usage. That means iOS almost has a 50 point lead over its Google-backed rival, which is interesting considering that Google’s purpose for Android was getting mobile users to its website.

Of course research involving 40,000 sites doesn’t speak for the entire web, but it does give us a good idea of what the numbers look like. I wonder why there is such a big difference between the two platforms. Aren’t Android users taking advantage of their LTE speeds?