Chinese algebra

An interesting set of data points from Baidu's latest internet stats pack this month.

First, the obvious: iPhone is growing fast but Android is exploding: 

Screen Shot 2012-12-11 at 11.02.37 AM.png

Second, though, and actually more interesting from a global perspective, Baidu also gives browser share (both of these charts are for PVs).

Screen Shot 2012-12-11 at 11.11.17 AM.png

Webkit is the browser used by iOS and by Google's stock Android browser, and also Chrome. Something looks funny about that number...

  • 22% of mobile PVs on Baidu use Webkit. 
  • 11% use iOS
  • 34% use Android

So 11% use Webkit and aren't on iOS, but 34% are on Android. By extension, the other 23% are using other browsers. That means that, on these numbers, two thirds of Android phones in China (that are being used online) are not using Google's own browser. What other changes have been made, I wonder...

How big is this? On my model, there were 130m Android phones in China in Q3 (roughly the same as the total number of smartphones in the USA). 90m of these are not even using Google's own web browser. 

Benedict Evans