Apple's iOS platform driving 55% of worldwide mobile internet traffic

Apple's iOS operating system now accounts for 54.65 percent of worldwide mobile web traffic, more than three times Google's Android, according to new data published by Net Applications. In fact, at 16.26 percent global market share across mobile phones and tablets, Android net traffic even trails Java ME (18.52 percent). Symbian follows at 6.12 percent, trailed by Research In Motion's (NASDAQ:RIMM) BlackBerry at 3.29 percent.

The iOS platform's dominance over the mobile net landscape is somewhat surprising given that Android controls 48 percent of the worldwide smartphone market according to recent Canalys data, far ahead of iOS at 19 percent.

Apple's iPad continues to own the worldwide tablet market, increasing to 68.3 percent global market share during the second quarter, up from 65.7 percent a quarter ago. At the same time, Android's tablet market share slipped from 34.0 percent in the first quarter to 26.8 percent, due both to Apple's dominance and the introduction of RIM's BlackBerry PlayBook, which captured 4.9 percent market share.

By 2015, more U.S. Internet users will access the web via mobile devices than PCs or other wireline channels according to a forecast issued last month by research firm IDC. The number of mobile net users is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent between 2010 and 2015, thanks to the increasing smartphone penetration and sales of tablets like the iPad. IDC had predicted that PC-based web access across the U.S. will first stagnate then slowly decline, with Western Europe and Japan following the same trend.