Making certain that your business has optimized itself for mobile use, has never been more important than it is today. Recent research from the Pew Research Center indicates that more and more consumers are becoming reliant on their cell phones as their sole means of accessing the world wide web. The following is taken from the recent research done at Pew:
- Today, 37% of U.S. adults say they mostly use a smartphone when accessing the internet. This share has nearly doubled since 2013, when the Center last asked this question. At that point, 19% of Americans named their smartphone as their primary device for going online.
- Younger adults are especially likely to reach for their phones when going online. Fully 58% of 18-to 29-year-olds say they mostly go online through a smartphone, up from 41% in 2013. Still, this growth is evident across all age groups. For example, the share of adults ages 30 to 49 who say they mostly use a smartphone to go online has nearly doubled – from 24% in 2013 to 47% today.
- A majority of adults say they subscribe to home broadband, but about one-in-four (27%) do not. And growing shares of these non-adopters cite their mobile phone as a reason for not subscribing to these services.
- Among non-broadband users, 45% say they do not have broadband at home because their smartphone lets them do everything they need to do online, up from 27% in 2015.
- Fully 81% of adults now say they own a smartphone, up slightly from 77% in 2018. Overall, 17% of Americans are now “smartphone only” internet users – meaning they own a smartphone but do not subscribe to broadband internet service at home. This share has roughly doubled since 2013.
- For those who own a smartphone, these devices now outpace more traditional means of accessing the web. Some 46% of smartphone owners say when using the internet, they mostly do so on their phone. This represents a double-digit increase from 2013, when 34% of these users said this.
- When asked to name the most important reason they do not subscribe to home broadband, more non-adopters point to the functionality of their smartphones today than in the past. Some 23% of non-broadband users say the most important reason for them not having a broadband connection at home is because their smartphones let them do everything they need to do online – roughly doubling the share (12%) who said this in 2015.
-Written by Kevin Sawyer
