Key findings of the Nucleus Mobile Web Browsing Survey – January 2013 are:
- Mobile browsing of travel websites leaps to 27.1% of all website traffic in January 2013, up from 20.5% six months earlier
- Growth rate accelerates again, up 31.7% on previous period
- iPad drives iOS to an all time high, with 88.3% share of all mobile browsing devices; up from 84.9% six months earlier
- iPad Mini reinforces iOS dominance, with 61.9% of all mobile browsing now on iPads. iPhone 5 impact less obvious
- Android devices still failing to grow web browsing share, with penetration steady at 8% of mobile traffic
- BlackBerry slides to less than 1% of mobile traffic; Symbian in its death throes
- Luxury websites show highest levels of mobile traffic with an average of more than 30%
Peter Matthews, Nucleus founder and CEO, commented “our latest survey confirms we have entered the Mobile era. With mobile traffic growing by 31.7% in the past 6 months, we do not believe it will be very long before mobile devices account for the majority of website browsing.”
He added “The other stand-out finding was the growing dominance of iOS devices for mobile browsing, particularly the iPad which now accounts for 61.9% of all website browsing. Some say that the iPad is closer to a PC than a smartphone, but iPad is responsible for a huge change in user behaviour. This means that all websites now need to offer finger-friendly responsive design.”
“We remain puzzled by Android’s continued lack of mobile penetration, given the number of devices shipped, but for now have to put this anomaly down to inferior web browsers and therefore compromised browsing experiences.”
Download a free copy of the latest survey
Notes:
Nucleus’ 4th six-monthly survey of mobile web browsing analysed traffic in the month of January 2013 to 10 travel websites, from mass market to high-end luxury, including both UK and international brands with global audiences.
Total unique visitor sample for the 10 websites was 1.7m unique visitors.
Android market share includes specific Android devices plus ‘unspecified devices’ which may inflate the statement of Android OS share.