Estimates of Mobile Phones and SmartPhones supporting HTML5
Over the last few months, we have seen lot of client requests who want to reach out to their customers and target segment through Mobile. Of course one way is to create a native mobile app (iPhone, Android, J2ME Blackberry or iPad) for each platform, and the other way is to create a mobile website. Now, some of the clients opt for both the approaches, and some just for one, depending upon their budget and target market.
When it comes to mobile websites, we have seen little hesitation on creating HTML5 Mobile Websites. We get lot of questions on what is the future for HTML5, what benefits over the WAP, and most important being which mobile phones are supported by HTML5?
Lets try to answer the last one, which mobile phones or smart phones support HTML5?
| Mobile Device | HTML5 Support | Mobile Browsers | Future HTML5 Support |
|---|---|---|---|
| iPhone | Excellent support on iPhone and iPad using mobile Safari | mobile Safari | Excellent, Apple has taken a position in favor of HTML5 against Flash |
| Android | Excellent Support on more than 97% of Android Devices with the default Google Android Browser | Android Browser, SkyFire | Excellent, Google is moving to HTML5 for its core products like Gmail, Youtube, Google Voice and more. |
| Blackberry | Excellent on new Models (Torch, Curve 9330, and Bold 9650) running Blackberry OS 6+
Good on Models running Blackberry OS 5+(Curve 8520, Bold 9700, Curve 8900, Storm) Average on older Models running Blackberry OS 4+ (Curve 8310, 8330, Bold 8700) |
Bolt, Blackberry 6 Native Browser, Opera Mobile | With the latest Blackberry OS 6 supporting HTML5, majority of 100 Million+ Blackberry devices would soon start supporting HTML5 with default browser. |
| Windows Mobile | Average on Windows Mobile 6 devices
Good on Windows Mobile 7 devices |
Bolt, Skyfire, Opera Mobile 10 | Although Microsoft didn’t supported HTML5 as default with Windows Mobile 7, but the new Internet Explorer version 9 in works supports HTML5 and would enable the mobile HTML5 support. |
| Symbian | Average Support on Nokia and Samsung Phones
Good Support on new Nokia Symbian 3 Phones Good Support on LG Phones with their browser Phantom |
Bolt, Skyfire,Phantom | Good Chances that Nokia would be soon announcing complete support for HTML5 in Symbian 4 OS. Till that time third party browsers like Bolt, and Skyfire would be there for all the Symbian phones having J2ME support. |
| Samsung | Good Support on Bada Phones | Dolfin | Samsung is betting big on Bada and targeting conversion of its mid-market popular phones to Bada from Symbian and other OS. |
| Palm | Excellent support on new Web OS
Average support on older devices |
Web | With HP buying Palm, lot of devices are expected using Web OS, and having the webkit based browser called ‘Web’ |
Notes:
a. A Lot of HTML5 features depend on the underlying specifications of mobile phone like camera, codecs support, Processor, Screen Resolution, and more.
b. If you want to check how much support your current mobile phone browser has, simply go to www.html5test.com from your mobile browser.
So, How many mobile phones exist right now which can display HTML5 mobile websites?
Till the end of Q2, 2010, 350 Million devices have shipped which offer partial or complete support for HTML5 with their native browsers. One can safely add another 100 Million devices where the users have installed third party browsers like Bolt, Opera or Skyfire to their phones and can browse HTML5 powered mobile websites. This makes our supported device pool around 450 Million phones.
Yesterday, during their results, Apple announced that they are activating 270,000 iOS powered devices every day. Few days back Google had announced that they are activating 230,000 Android devices every day. Combine this, and you are looking at 15 Million mobile devices being added to our HTML5 supported device pool every month. Given the growth third party browsers are seeing, one can safely assume that they are growing at 60% annually, which means 5 Million mobile devices get on the HTML5 bandwagon every month using these browsers. Add another 5 Million Devices which are being sold by other platforms like Nokia, Samsung, and Bada.
So, as of date the total number of HTML5 supported mobile phones stand at 450 Million and growing at 25 Million Devices per month. That’s an impressive number, since the growth rate would only increase from here. We expect nearly 1 Billion mobile phones with good HTML5 support by Oct 2011.
Now, you need to decide if you still want to create a WAP site or leverage HTML5 to create a highly interactive and engaging mobile website for your users. In either of the cases, do Contact Us, and we would be happy to help.
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Vikas, great blog! I’m doing some work with clients using HTML5 and always am looking for data on how prevalent it is. This is a great summarization. Do you have anything split out for U.S.?
Hugh, I do not have specific U.S. Numbers, but my guess would be that you can take 40-60% of the numbers I have quoted in the Blog as U.S. only. This is based on some of the original data we had.
Great blog posting – what data source did you use to determine your estimates?
Thanks Sarah, We used couple of research reports from Analysts including Gartner, data from different mobile devices being sold by Google, Android, Nokia, and extrapolated based on the growth rate to arrive at these estimates. I think we have overshot our estimates now, and it would be growing at a better rate than we expected.
Thanks Vikas. Any thoughts on updating this post for year ended 2011?
Definitely Marlon, would add this to my To-Do list, and issue an updated post before the year ends.