Over the last few years I have been releasing browser and OS stats for www.radionz.co.nz and The Wireless. I left RNZ today (Friday), so this will be the last of these posts, based on data from October 2016. I hope you’ve found them useful.
In October 2016 we can see that the Chrome browser use has fallen and has been overtaken by Safari. The shift from desktop to mobile has continued.
iOS is now the dominant reported OS.
Browsers
| Browser | 10/2016 | 02/2016 | 07/2015 | 02/2015 | 09/2014 | 03/2014 | 11/2013 | 06/2012 | 11/2011 | 11/2010 | 11/2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chrome | 36.5 | 39.2 | 37.63 | 33.6 | 30.8 | 25.23 | 23.7 | 14.6 | 13.8 | 8.75 | 4.2 |
| Safari | 40.27 | 26.7 | 20.14 | 18 | 18.8 | 18.94 | 17.52 | 17.3 | 5.6 | 13.1 | 10 |
| IE | 5.48 | 9.83 | 14.73 | 17.2 | 18.9 | 24.02 | 26.3 | 37.5 | 41.2 | 50.6 | 56 |
| Edge | 1.19 | ||||||||||
| Firefox | 6.17 | 9.03 | 11.26 | 12.3 | 14.5 | 14.81 | 16.6 | 19.8 | 23.2 | 25.52 | 27.5 |
| Safari (in-app) | 7.63 | 8.78 | 7.8 | ||||||||
| Android | 1.4 | 3.3 | 5.3 | 8.3 | 9.0 | 11.71 | 11 | 7.5 | |||
| Opera | 0.21 | 0.3 | .38 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.46 | 0.69 | 0.7 | 0.9 | 1.02 |
At The Wireless: Chrome 49.21%, Safari (in app) 27.79%, Safari 13.12%, Firefox 4.73%, IE 2.5%, Android 1.06%
Operating Systems
| OS | 10/2016 | 02/2016 | 07/2015 | 02/2015 | 09/2014 | 03/2014 | 11/2013 | 06/2012 | 11/2011 | 11/2010 | 11/2009 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Windows | 26.16 | 36.2 | 42.67 | 44.8 | 48.9 | 52.9 | 58 | 67.3 | 72 | 81 | 84.8 |
| iOS | 44.83 | 31.3 | 23.37 | 21.42 | 18.4 | 16.6 | 14 | 7.88 | |||
| Android | 20.06 | 21.16 | 20.66 | 20.89 | 17 | 16.5 | 13.7 | 7.79 | 3.6 | 0.3 | 0.02 |
| Mac | 7.43 | 8.99 | 9.69 | 9.44 | 11.7 | 10.7 | 13.4 | 14.7 | 15.6 | 14.2 | 12.6 |
| iPhone | 2.5 | 1.4 | 0.56 | ||||||||
| iPad | 2.4 | 0.63 | 0 | ||||||||
| Linux | 0.62 | 0.83 | 1.04 | 1.38 | 1.6 | 1.9 | 1.8 | 1.27 | 1.53 | 1.4 | 1.45 |
| Win Phone | 0.42 | 0.7 | 0.82 | 0.63 | 0.57 | 0.44 | 0.39 | ||||
| iPod | 0.5 | 0.35 | 0.22 |
Mobile
In June 2012 mobile was 16% of RNZ traffic. In November 2013 it was 29%. In March 2014 it was 23.4% mobile and 10.8% for tablet, making 34.2%. In September 2014 it was 61.8%, 26.3% mobile and 11.8% for tablet. Feb 2015 it was 55.5% desktop, 32.8% mobile and 11% for tablet. At the end of July 2015 it is 53% desktop, 34% mobile, and 12.4% tablet, while in Feb 2016 is desktop declined once again, down to 45.6%. Mobile increased to 42.49% mobile, and tablet is down slightly to 11.84%.
The final word this month is that mobile is 54.5%, desktop is 34%, and tablet is stable at 11.46%.
At The Wireless it is 60.38% mobile, 35% desktop, and 4.6% tablet.
The takeaway from this is that mobile-friendly is no longer good enough – sites have to have an excellent, fast-loading, engaging mobile experience. I suspect this figure of 66% (2/3) is typical for the average NZ site.
What this also means in practice, is that you need to be optimising your site to work well over 3G. Remember dial-up? Yep, we are back to that again, but on steroids, and fortunately with more sophisticated tools and better browsers.
Richard Hulse 