The iPhone is rapidly increasing Apple’s share of the browser market, according to the latest figures from StatCounter.

About 1 in 400 browsers on the Internet are now using Safari on the iPhone or iPod touch.

• Apple increased its share of the Internet browser market in the US by 64% between December and March, according to StatCounter,
• In March, iPhone and iPod touch increased their share of the total browser market in the US from 0.14% in December to 0.23%.
• Globally iPhone/iPod touch has more than doubled its share of the Internet browser market from 0.03% to 0.08%.

“The key message is that iPhone is more than living up to its claims of being a user friendly Internet browser, unlike many other cell phones,” commented Aodhan Cullen, founder and CEO of StatCounter.

We’ve said previously that Apple’s mobile Safari is likely to have a 1% browser share by the end of this year. This is going to:

• increase competition in the mobile market;
• accelerate the development of more demanding mobile apps, like social media and mobile content publishing;
• kill the use of Flash on sites targeting mobile users;
• make Safari the target platform for mobile development.

While other manufacturers are playing catch-up with the iPhone, there’s a strong possibility that Apple’s integrated hardware/software approach, along with its two-year lead on other companies, will let it turn the iPhone into a juggernaut like the iPod.

The StatCounter analysis was based on a sample of 372 million page views globally from December 07 to March 08, including 71 million US page views.