Some recent numbers were released by AdMob that claim that the iPhone is taking up close to 50% of the traffic for mobile phones worldwide. At first glance, one would think that it means that the iPhone is in the hands of 50% of mobile phone users that are using the web, but that is obviously not true.

While the iPhone is far and away the most popular smart phone on the market, they do not have 50% of the market share. That being the case, what exactly does this number mean, if anything at all?

What this number is referring to is the actual amount of Internet bandwith that is being used by iPhone users. The reason for this is that iPhone users are using the web more than the users of any other type of smart phone that is out there. You can pop your head into any café and you are probably going to see an equal amount of iPhones, Blackberry’s and Droid’s right now. So why are iPhone users on the net so much more?

The obvious answer here is the sheer amount of their apps. Because the other phones only have about 10% of the amount of apps that Apple has, it is only reasonable to assume that iPhone users are going to be on the Internet a lot more than the other smart phone users, especially if the apps are Internet driven.

As other companies begin to catch up in the app department and make better smart phones, that number will more than likely start to even out. When all is said and done, this number really means nothing other than being proof that iPhone users spend quite a bit of time on the their phones.