A World Increasingly Becoming Mobile

Yes, technology has sure come a long way. Gone are the days when a computer was a whole building. Smartphones today are, in essence, small computers we can hold in the palm of our hands.

With this trend, activities previously reserved to the realm of desktop computers, like Internet browsing, have become the diversified. In a way, we expect this to become the norm. Sometimes, though, we forget how fast our advancements in technology have become.

Take for example a recent report revealed by analytics firm Net Market Share. Data the firm released on July 1 reveals that 5 percent of all Internet browsing in the whole world is done through mobile devices.

According to Net Market Share, “mobile and tablet platforms now account for over %5 of all browsing on the internet.”

What’s more, adaption of Internet browsing using mobile devices is higher in the U.S. The report says that 8.2 percent of all Internet browsing in the U.S. is done through the use of mobile devices.

This is a 100 percent increase compared to the 2.5-percent share of mobile Internet browsing in all Internet browsing for August of 2010.

The report is grounded on data collected from a large pool. According to the Agence France-Presse, the Net Market Share report is the product of data collected “from a network of 40,000 global websites tracking 160 million unique visits per month by Internet users around the world.” That’s certainly a sufficient pool of data, if you ask me.

Looking further into the U.S. market, Net Market Share reveals the iPhone is the leading device used in mobile Internet browsing in the country accounting for 2.9 percent of the 8.2 percent of mobile Internet browsing in the U.S.

Android phones come second with 2.6 percent and the iPad comes in third with 2.1. percent. BlackBerry, Symbian, Java ME and Windows Mobile come in fourth, fifth, and sixth with 0.57 percent, 0.03 percent, 0.2 percent, and 0.2 percent share respectively.

Interesting to note here is that the iPad has exceeded 1 percent of all Internet browsing in the U.S. with its 2.1 percent share.

So what does this mean?

The increased amount of time people spend using their mobile phones for browsing the Internet means that people are buying more and more smartphones. Of course, with an increase in smartphones comes more demand for smartphone-related services like data and apps.

This trend is expected to continue. However, I can’t wait until true 4G LTE standards are used by carriers and we enter the era of the “genius phone”, a phone which, in all aspects, transcends the “smartphone”.