A Chitika mobile commerce study showed that Linux drives the fewest searches and iOS and Mac platforms drive the most.
Though Google easily receives the most queries in terms of search engines – with a 92 percent share – but according to the Chitika ad network, when it comes to browsers, Google is not generating the mobile commerce traffic.
Instead, it is Apple iOS mobile platform that is generating the highest number of queries, as 54 percent of its internet traffic performs searches. In second place is the Macintosh OS, where 48 percent of its traffic is dedicated to searching. These are both far above the portion of queries that occur on all of the other major platforms, where the average is 36 percent.
It would be easy to assume that it would be Android – the Google mobile platform – that would be best optimized and most preferred for searching, it is only in third place, as 43 percent of all of its web traffic performs searches.
At the same time, Microsoft is continuing to try to fight to use Bing to smash through Google’s seemingly impenetrable hold over the search engine environment. However, despite all of its efforts, Microsoft still sees only 32 percent of its web traffic performing searches.
According to the study, it is Linux that holds the last place for searches.
Chitika’s study indicated that Linux users were performing searches there only 14 percent of the time, the least of any of the platforms.
The report on the results of the study didn’t attempt to indicate why Apple was seeing so many more searches than Microsoft and Google, though it did attempt to explain why Linux was sitting in the lowest position. It stated that “Linux devices tend to be used for operational and development purposes.”
This could also help to explain why Windows is also seeing low mobile commerce search numbers.
While the Microsoft operating system may have a significant presence among enterprises, it could be that they are using their browsers more frequently for applications and less often for searching than is the experience on other platforms.
Conversely, that may help to show why Apple is doing so well; though it should be noted that the company is also making important steps forward in the consumer and mobile commerce marketplaces. This is because its primary popularity is among consumers, who – according to the data at Chitika – appear to search more often than people who use their browsers for professional reasons.
