{"id":1307,"date":"2016-11-02T09:55:13","date_gmt":"2016-11-02T09:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/11\/02\/worldwide-mobile-internet-use-surpasses-desktop-for-the-first-time-ever\/"},"modified":"2019-03-11T11:36:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-11T11:36:27","slug":"worldwide-mobile-internet-use-surpasses-desktop-for-the-first-time-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/11\/02\/worldwide-mobile-internet-use-surpasses-desktop-for-the-first-time-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"Worldwide mobile internet use surpasses desktop for the first time ever"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>It\u2019s the moment we\u2019ve been waiting for.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>All us mobile-first proponents have been sat patiently rubbing our hands and saying \u201cyou\u2019ll see, just you wait and see!\u201d to anyone within hearing distance &#8211; but now we have the proof. Mobile internet use is now more popular than desktop the whole world over.<\/p>\n<p>To be honest, it was an easy prediction to make. Earlier in the year Google stated that mobile searches had already <a href=\"https:\/\/adwords.googleblog.com\/2015\/05\/building-for-next-moment.html\">surpassed desktop<\/a> in 10 countries including the US and Japan. And mobile <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/03\/28\/29-most-interesting-sem-stats-from-march-2016\/\">ad spend has been dominate<\/a> over desktop since March. So the following research shouldn\u2019t be too much of a surprise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/gs.statcounter.com\/press\/mobile-and-tablet-internet-usage-exceeds-desktop-for-first-time-worldwide\">StatCounter Global Stats has found that<\/a> mobile and tablet devices accounted for 51.3% of internet usage worldwide in October compared to 48.7% by desktop.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-65705\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2016\/11\/internet_usage_2009_2016_ww-1024x559.png\" alt=\"internet_usage_2009_2016_ww\" width=\"1024\" height=\"559\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Although don\u2019t get to excited, as there is a huge difference from country to country, with the US and UK still lagging behind other territories.<\/p>\n<p>In the UK, desktop <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2018\/12\/21\/guide-google-analytics-confusing-terms\/\">users<\/a> account 55.6% of the online population, compared to 44.4% on mobile device. In the US the gap is even more pronounced (58% desktop vs 42% mobile) &#8211; however looking at the graphs below, it may not be long before the balance is tipped.<\/p>\n<h3>UK:<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-65706\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2016\/11\/UK-1024x559.png\" alt=\"uk\" width=\"1024\" height=\"559\" \/><\/p>\n<h3>USA:<\/h3>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-65707\" src=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/25\/2016\/11\/USA-1024x559.png\" alt=\"usa stats\" width=\"1024\" height=\"559\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Despite desktop still clinging on in western countries, it\u2019s the rest of the world that has seen mobile truly dominate. India for example has over 75% internet usage through its mobile devices. In Japan it&#8217;s over 76%, and in China mobile accounts over 54% of internet use.<\/p>\n<p>As the research reminds us, it\u2019s a stark warning to post-Brexit Britain that businesses looking to trade outside of the EU will need to ensure their own mobile presence is fully optimised. And if that wasn&#8217;t enough, Google of course considers mobile-friendliness as a very important ranking factor.<\/p>\n<p>If you need help optimising your website, we have a thorough <a href=\"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/2016\/05\/17\/how-do-i-make-sure-my-site-is-mobile-friendly\/\">mobile friendly checklist<\/a> written by Rebecca Sentence that will help.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mobile and tablet devices accounted for 51.3% of internet usage worldwide in October compared to 48.7% by desktop.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":1308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,11],"tags":[529,1122,1050,1123],"content_type":[27095],"class_list":["post-1307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","category-more-news","tag-mobile-friendly","tag-mobile-use","tag-mobilegeddon","tag-worldwide-trends","content_type-news"],"acf":{"tad_independentcommercial":false,"tad_content_format":false},"post_info":{"name":"Christopher Ratcliff","title":"","thumbnail_url":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/internet_usage_2009_2016_ww-1-120x90.png","category":"Mobile","timeago":"9y"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/136"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1307"},{"taxonomy":"content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/searchenginewatch.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content_type?post=1307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}