Mobile Web Browsing Overtakes Desktop

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Mobile Web Browsing Overtakes Desktop

It’s been a long time coming and we all knew it would happen eventually but now mobile web browsing has overtaken desktop for the first time.

Smartphone and tablet web browsing now controls 51.3% of the web traffic market.

Mobile web browsing has been steadily increasing since 2009, with desktop web browsing consistently shrinking. As of October 2016, mobile has overtaken desktop for web usage.

With this in mind, it has never been more important for estate agents to make sure that their website is fully mobile friendly.

Not only is a mobile friendly website important for usability and due to high volumes of traffic coming to your website from mobile, but Google also favours mobile friendly websites within their search results.

Of course, Google knew that mobile would one day dominate and began gearing their search algorithm to favour mobile friendly websites years ago, continuing to make changes to favour mobile regularly.

Desktop usage has continually declined but it is still dominant in the UK, US and Australia. Desktops still account for 55.6% of the web browsing market share in the UK, 58% in the US and 55.1% in Australia, but these numbers are continually declining and it is only a matter of time before mobile web browsing overtakes desktops in these countries.

Desktop sales have also been declining for years, while smartphone and tablet sales have increased, which is why mobile is the primary access point to the internet in many countries around the world. 

Luke Stanley