Samsung surpasses Apple in worldwide mobile Internet usage; Nokia leads in India

Samsung is already the leading smartphone maker in the world and the company leads several national markets as well. This would suggest that more people access the Internet through a Samsung device than, say, an Apple or Nokia mobile. But surprisingly, this wasn’t the case till last month. In June, Samsung finally managed to overtake its closest rival Apple and now more people are using the Korean company’s devices to access the Internet than Apple's iPhones or iPads.

StatCounter tracked Internet usage from July 2012 till last month and found that Samsung had beaten last year’s top company Nokia and Apple for global Internet usage. Having said that, it’s only a marginal lead for Samsung; Apple has a share of 25.09 percent and Samsung beats it with a 25.47 percent share. Nokia fell from 28.05 percent last year to third place with 21.96 percent. It’s bad reading for BlackBerry, which only accounted for 3.62 percent of worldwide Internet usage on mobile devices. On the bright side, the company’s share has risen since January, when the Z10 was launched.

Nokia rules the roost in India

In India, Nokia leads the way with 47.63 percent of the surveyed users connecting to the Internet through its devices. Samsung is in second place with 27.5 percent of the share. Interestingly, in third position is "Unknown", which probably includes all the nondescript brands that sell in the open market. In fourth place is Micromax with 3.84 percent share. The tail is made up of companies like Apple, HTC, BlackBerry, LG and Sony.

The Cupertino company still leads the way in terms of Internet usage in the US and UK, where Samsung is quite far behind Apple. Samsung has a share of 18.3 percent, whereas Apple has 54.84 percent. Ominously for the Canadian company, BlackBerry’s share has gone from a low 3.24 percent to a pitiful 1.39 percent. In fact, in the US, the company’s share fell after the Z10’s launch.

In the UK too, Apple is the clear leader with 47.97 percent share; BlackBerry fell from 27.83 percent in July 2012 to 16.15 percent this year. Its No 2 spot went to Samsung with 20.45 percent share.