Telephia and comScore announced today what many of us have long suspected - that the mobile web is growing like Topsy. In fact, 5.7 million people in the UK use the mobile web, as opposed to 30 million who access the web by PC. This means that the mobile web is already nearly one fifth the size of the PC web.
In the US, the stat is 17% (30 million of 176 million), which is pretty impressive considering that the US often lags behind a little in mobile. It’s also worth combining these two pieces of the jigsaw and saying that there are as many mobile web users in the US as there are PC web users in the UK.
In the UK, 67% of mobile web users are under 35, with the equivalent figure for PC web being 39%. Clearly then, the mobile web is a young man’s game - not a sexist statement, ladies, as 63% of mobile users are male. A similar situation, though not as pronounced, exists in the US, with 46% of users being under 35 (v’s 36% on the PC web) and 60% male (v’s 49% on the PC).
Accessing the web via the mobile, as any sane, thinking person must acknowledge is going to dwarf PC access. And indeed, I would argue that it’ll replace it altogether within the next 5 years - PC style functionality (keyboard and large screens) will be available via a docking station when you need it. So this is just the start of things and as fixed price data packages become available, handsets get better, speeds get faster and mobile sites are better designed and optimised, the pace of growth is simply going to explode.
Great to hear these kind of stats! Mobile web makes sense in this age of tech-mobility.. handset performance has too long been playing catch-up with the imagination of services engineers
I guess I must be pretty insane and non-thinking then. There is absolutely no way that mobile-accessed Internet usage is going to “dwarf” PC-based in terms of metrics like number of users, time online, bytes transferred, money spent or “pixels consumed”. And I speak as an avid user of the web & email on mobile devices.
Nobody in their right mind is going to do the page layout for MySpace, or shop around for holidays, or archive their emails on a handset. No teenager is going to have 15 simultaneous IM sessions running on a mobile. And I’m absolutely certain that the head of procurement for Lufthansa won’t be getting the SAP system to issue a B2B purchase order for Boeing 747s via his phone.
I also wonder if these stats include people with laptops connecting via 3G or WiFi who think of themselves as using “the web, when I’m mobile”.
It was notable that at Ericsson’s Capital Markets Day last week they predicted that mobile data traffic would grow 100x by 2012. And they also predicted that fixed data traffic would also grow 100x in the same period. Neither was only Internet access, but also included video, but the principle is valid - Basically mobile data traffic is around 1.3% of fixed broadband level & staying that way. And that’s Ericsson, which is probably more mobile-centric than most.
Mobile access to the web is important, yes, but don’t overstate it.
I’m really suprised to hear this, and I’d like to see the statistics and how they arrived at this number. If they’re including the people that check their email by phone, this number seems to make partial sense. But regular web use? I highly doubt nearly 20% of US traffic comes from mobiles.
Dean
Thanks for the comment. A couple of points here.
1. In any event, accessing the mobile web will be bigger than PC access from a global perspective. Markets like BRIC are going to leapfrog the PC and indeed, probably already have more people accessing the web like that today. These markets are HUGE and sheer weight of numbers will mean that I’m going to be right on this one.
2. Even in your very Western-centric use cases above, all these scenarios could be done via the phone with ease if “PC style functionality (keyboard and large screens) will be available via a docking station when you need it”. So to spell things out, the mobile will be your primary digital device. If you need to do some heavy-lifting, you’ll dock it into a dumb terminal consisting of a keyboard and larger screen, do your work and remove the mobile and be on your way. So the mobile becomes more like a key to access your data which is stored online.
I hope this is a clearer scenario of my vision and thinking on this. Of course you can disagree and who knows, you may be right. But I’d still say that in 5 years accessing the web via your mobile will indeed dwarf PC access both globally and in the West too, albeit for different reasons.
We’ll see.
Russell
Ten more years of technology…
Summary…
What’s interesting to me is the comparison going on between mobile usage/digital dominance in 5 years vs. today’s behaviors. I wonder if you’re both right (Dean and Russell).
Our behaviors and ways we communicate are radically changing. Our current behaviors - are a little cumbersome on today’s mobile devices, agreed. And yikes - filling out a purchase order on a mobile today? But come the time when microformats are common practice, and we have machine talking to machine - I can’t help but agree with Russell.
Very interesting debate but where does the pc end and mobile begin…and vice versa! I’ve long shared Russell’s vision and believe that a docking scenario is inevitable..you only have to look at the trends that support such a scenario, quad play that will lead to integrated pc/mobile web access charges, pc’s including mobile features and mobiles including pc features, user data accessible anytime-anyplace-any device, the need for speed/immediate access fueled by competitive pressures and youthful impatience. I think a slew of hardware, comercial and sociological drivers will make a single device scenario inevitable but the big question is…who will own the media space? Exciting, challenging and opportunistic times ahead for all.
Interesting statistics. I hope soon their will be a statistics about which sites do mobile users visit
A very interesting discussion. Having some experience of my domestic market (India), I have realized that the PC penetration is still very low in India. Moreover there is *stupendous* & *un-imaginable* growth in Mobile penetration.
We are all aware of the PC Perils (HW, SW, Maintenance, Learning curve, etc.)
I think the mobile is just the device Indian masses required. The advantages being Anywhere, Anytime, High availability, Low maintenence, Low learning cover, etc. I leave it to others to find the perils though
Some of the applications, websites that would drive the Mobile usage in Indian context are:
mvies.in
http://m.yahoo.com
etc.
A very interesting discussion. Having some experience of my domestic market (India), I have realized that the PC penetration
is still very low in India. Moreover there is *stupendous* & *un-imaginable* growth in Mobile penetration.
We are all aware of the PC Perils (HW, SW, Maintenance, Learning curve, etc.)
I think the mobile is just the device Indian masses required. The advantages being Anywhere, Anytime, High availability, Low
maintenence, Low learning cover, etc. I leave it to others to find the perils though
Some of the applications, websites that would drive the Mobile usage in Indian context are:
mvies.in
http://m.yahoo.com
WOMAN - follow the comscore link in the post (which is a justa copy paste of a press release) It has tables etc of sites etc
In terms of web v mobile web - two different beasts me thinks. If only purely from the way has to be presented on small screens.
The biggest growth markets are in developing countries - like Nigeria (which is the biggest source of traffic to the BBC mobile web site outside the UK)
Pocket & Dock It
Just wanted to share with you a neat little phrase that pretty much covers the vision you’re talking about here, Russell. First heard it from a Qualcomm executive, who was talking around the San Diego vision of future devices that they see will be driven by their new SnapDragon chipsets (http://www.cdmatech.com/products/snapdragon.jsp). Anyway, he’s coined the phrase “Pocket & Dock It” devices, which QCOM see as being portable/pocketable devices with 5-7″ screen, cellular connectivity (e.g. via HSPA ) used in conjunction with docking station to become users’ PRIMARY device for accessing the internet, effectively replacing their users’ existing PCs. All sounds very nice, although such devices seem destined in the medium-term more to take share from laptop sales and BlackBerry/Smartphone, rather than the mass market feature phone segment.
Thanks for the comments everyone.
I like “Pocket and Dock it” as a phrase and it’s nice to know that Qualcomm are on the same page!
Russell
Russell,
That’s an interesting discussion and the way I see it - Dean and you are talking about the realities of two different worlds. Having founded a startup two years ago based on mobile social networking picking up and having worked on the enterprise side of things, I’ve seen both the worlds.
Personally, I believe that consumers will be quicker and more likely to adopt mobile web primarily because enterprises are usually slow in adoption of disruptive technologies. There’s another reason, technology wise we’re ready for consumer applications for mobile web, though the UI still sucks for most - but I just don’t see the power, the security, the speed and the robustness in mobile web yet for enterprise applications.
Before we go on forecasting the mobile web dwarfing the PC web, I believe a more careful look at the statistics is required. How much time did people spend on the mobile web, what kinds of things did they do etc.
Also, I still think that more data will be downloaded over Wi-Fi networks than cellular as carriers start offering FMC - so the mobile web and PC web are pretty much going to converge anyway…
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Now we just need a good, free, open-source mobile web browser. Think Mozilla is up for the challenge?
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Well argued..from our experience in shyam radio, an online tamil internet radio, I would like to quote further..India expecially needs mobile web..but the content should be local..already some of our listners have mailed us that they hear shyam radio through their gprs enabled windows mobile..gprs cost is already minimum as far as bsnl is concerned..upfront is nil..can you believe? usage depends..but more unlimited cost structure will bridge the digital divide.
Dr.SHYAM
[…] detailed information about web-development for mobile devices and web-design for “mini-format”. Useful to know: in United State 19% of mobile users use Mobile Web, in UK - […]