Will Android follow the iPhone's web success?

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Google’s Android mobile platform is mimicking the market share growth for mobile browsing shown by Apple’s iPhone in its early days.

According to stats from Net Applications, the first three months of the first Apple iPhone in 2007 saw the platform reach 0.0496 per cent market of mobile browsing, while Google Android reached 0.0453 per cent in the three months since its launch.

Apple has just two versions of its iPhone – although the second gen 3G sold 6.9 million handsets in its first quarter. Google’s open source Android platform has been used on just one phone currently available in the UK, T-Mobile’s G1. A second handset, the HTC Magic, is due next month.

A report last week suggested Android would over take the iPhone by 2012.

Despite the solid start, Android has a long way to go to catch up, as the iPhone holds over 66 per cent of the market share for mobile browsing, according to Net Applications’ stats from last month. It’s followed by Java ME at 9.11 per cent, Windows Mobile at 6.9 per cent and Android at 6.26 per cent.

Nokia’s Symbian holds just 6.17 per cent, while Research in Motion’s BlackBerry clings to just 2.24 per cent.

All that said, web browsing is still dominated by computers. Some 98.93 per cent of web surfing was by PCs and laptops last month, compared to mobile devices at just 0.72 per cent.

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