Mobile Internet Usage Worldwide Beats Desktop for First Time: StatCounter

The dominance of smartphones in the technology space has been ever-increasing, more so in the recent time. Internet business are now becoming mobile-exclusive as more and more users are now opting to use the Web through a hand-held device. Now, a fresh study finds that, for the first time, mobile and tablet Internet usage in October exceeded desktop usage worldwide.

Web analytics company StatCounter claims that mobile and tablet devices accounted for 51.3 percent of Internet usage worldwide in October compared to 48.7 percent by desktop. The company has even shared a graph that shows a continuous decline in Internet usage on desktops, and a continuous increase in use of mobiles phones for Web browsing since 2009.

Even though Internet usage on mobile is on the rise, desktops still rule in US and UK countries. In the US, desktop still accounts for 58 percent of internet usage compared to 42 percent for mobile and tablet. In the UK, desktop holds 56 percent share, while mobile and tablet accounts for 44.4 percent usage. Countries like India on the other hand have large swathes of the population that have only gone online via their mobile phones.

"This should be a wake up call especially for small businesses, sole traders and professionals to make sure that their websites are mobile friendly. Many older websites are not," commented CEO of StatCounter, Aodhan Cullen, CEO, StatCounter.

Cullen further asserts the importance of mobile because Google has started favouring mobile-friendly sites in search results as well. Google recently also announced that it is building a primary mobile index for search results in the next few months. The desktop engine will also be maintained, but the mobile index will get more priority and be updated more frequently.

In June, Google also built a website called test my site for developers to measure how well their site performs on mobile and desktop.