Apple iOS dominates mobile internet usage in the US and UK

Apple's iOS operating system continues to dominate in the US and UK, despite Android being the most popular operating system worldwide, according to figures from web analytics firm StatCounter.

The firm released its "Internet Wars Report" which dissected 15 billion page views over 12 months, and there were a number of interesting findings.

Apple and Samsung fight for mobile supremacy

Samsung devices are now the most widely used handsets people use to access the internet, worldwide. The Korean firm has seen worldwide internet usage of its devices rise by six per cent over the last 12 months to 25.47 per cent, just ahead of Apple (25.09 per cent).

However, in the UK and US internet usage from Apple's iOS platform is higher, suggesting it is the preferred OS. In the UK, 47.97 per cent of users connect to the internet via an Apple device whereas in the US the figure is higher with 54.84 per cent of page views coming from an iOS smartphone. Samsung is a comfortable second in both markets.

Nokia was the biggest loser. Having led the worldwide market in June 2012 when it came to internet usage, the Finnish firm has slipped to third place. Some 21.96 per cent of mobile users worldwide access the web from a Nokia device, according to StatCounter.

Windows 7 still riding high

Despite Microsoft launching Windows 8 in October 2012, the number of people accessing the internet using Windows 7 has increased marginally in the period between June 2012 and July 2013.

Over half of all internet page views worldwide (52.62 per cent) are carried out using the Windows 7 operating system. This was followed by decade-old Windows XP, which is still the second most commonly used OS to access the web (29.1 per cent) despite Microsoft actively fazing it out.

Windows 8 is gaining traction (5.94 per cent) and overtook Vista (5.4 per cent) in terms of usage in June 2013.

Chrome overtakes Internet Explorer

Google's Chrome (32.43 per cent) overtook Microsoft's Internet Explorer (32.12 per cent) for the first time in terms of internet usage worldwide back in May 2012.

Over the last 12 months, usage of Internet Explorer has fallen off the cliff in US and UK, markets it has dominated. Microsoft's browser lost 10 per cent of its user base in both countries.

Mozilla's Firefox is comfortably the third most used browser worldwide, but it did see market share dip form 23.73 per cent to 20.01 per cent over the last year.