Is the Smart Phone set to rule the web?
We've all heard the hype about how smart devices; especially the phone's adoption of the Internet is growing at an astounding rate. It is expected that heavy mobile data users will triple to 3 billion by 2013, indicating a massive market emerging very fast. These are long-standing predictions by analysts but are their prophecies coming true?
Using a sample of five UK leisure and entertainment sites, covering the period from January to August 2010, I set out to find out whether cold, hard site metrics confirm or refute this long heralded prediction that the phone will be 'the next big thing.'
The results I found were quite startling!
Apple's iphone, ipod and ipad actually make up 83% of all smart devices accessing the sample of sites, and these iOS devices grew, on average, over the period at 59%. This massive growth is mainly due to the ipad's emergence on the scene, taking up 50% of the total.
The iphone, alone, commands a staggering 64% of the traffic accessing the sites and has grown at 8% over the period. The ipod traffic share was 15%, with only 1% growth and the ipad's share just 4% but with a massive growth of 50%. (Obviously the data for the ipad is slightly skewed due to its May UK launch date.)
Symbian devices, such as Nokia, Sharp, Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, fell by 4% but still retained an overall 7% share of the traffic.
Android devices, such as HTC, Motorola, LG and Google, rose by 21%, and commanded a 6% share of the traffic.
Blackberry, a big surprise, brings up the rear with just 4% of traffic but still growing by 11%.
So, the smart phone is growing; in fact its growth rate, when taken across all devices, comes in at a staggering 87%.
Is that not proof enough to suggest that the smart phone is, in fact, 'the next big thing!' The only thing standing in this little fellow's way, is the content and how it is delivered to it. It's time for a radical rethink in the way websites and web applications are constructed. Rather than thinking desktop, desktop, desktop think mobile, mobile, mobile!
Using a sample of five UK leisure and entertainment sites, covering the period from January to August 2010, I set out to find out whether cold, hard site metrics confirm or refute this long heralded prediction that the phone will be 'the next big thing.'
The results I found were quite startling!
Apple's iphone, ipod and ipad actually make up 83% of all smart devices accessing the sample of sites, and these iOS devices grew, on average, over the period at 59%. This massive growth is mainly due to the ipad's emergence on the scene, taking up 50% of the total.
The iphone, alone, commands a staggering 64% of the traffic accessing the sites and has grown at 8% over the period. The ipod traffic share was 15%, with only 1% growth and the ipad's share just 4% but with a massive growth of 50%. (Obviously the data for the ipad is slightly skewed due to its May UK launch date.)
Symbian devices, such as Nokia, Sharp, Fujitsu, Sony Ericsson and Samsung, fell by 4% but still retained an overall 7% share of the traffic.
Android devices, such as HTC, Motorola, LG and Google, rose by 21%, and commanded a 6% share of the traffic.
Blackberry, a big surprise, brings up the rear with just 4% of traffic but still growing by 11%.
So, the smart phone is growing; in fact its growth rate, when taken across all devices, comes in at a staggering 87%.
Is that not proof enough to suggest that the smart phone is, in fact, 'the next big thing!' The only thing standing in this little fellow's way, is the content and how it is delivered to it. It's time for a radical rethink in the way websites and web applications are constructed. Rather than thinking desktop, desktop, desktop think mobile, mobile, mobile!