Google: a third of people use the mobile web every day

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Posted 17 May 2012 11:16am by David Moth with 0 comments

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Almost two-thirds of UK smartphone owners (59%) access the mobile internet everyday, according to stats published on Google's 'Our Mobile Planet' site.

With smartphone penetration now at 51%, this equates to more than a third of the total UK population using the mobile web on a daily basis.

Google's industry leader for technology and hardware Simon Morgan used a speech at IAB Mobile Engage to highlight statistics that show the growing importance of mobile for marketing.

He said that:

• Mobile search has grown 500% in the past two years.
• 28% of smartphone owners check their phone before they get out of bed.
• YouTube mobile traffic tripled in 2011 and it now gets 600m views on mobile a day – equating to 10% of overall traffic.
• 75% of these users say that mobile is their principle way of accessing YouTube, and three hours of video is uploaded to the site using mobile every minute.
• 85% of UK mobile users seek local information on their smartphone, and 81% take action using the local content.

Morgan said that the rise of mobile was inevitably having an effect on retailers, with 17% of UK shoppers changing a purchase decision in-store after using a mobile.

He highlighted Oasis and Debenhams as two retailers who had embraced mobile to improve the customer experience. Realising that people hate queuing, Oasis installed iPads in their stores to allow customers to order products without waiting in line for the checkout. As a result they now see 20% of orders coming through the devices.

Similarly, Debenhams used an AR mobile app to allow customers to try on clothes virtually before they buy. Morgan said that Google was trying to become a "mobile first" company and said that marketers needed to adopt different marketing stategies for desktop and mobile.

He also urged the audience to consider how their organisations can adapt to mobile:

Find someone in your organisation to pull together a cross-functional team that can work together to produce a mobile strategy.

You can find more fact and figures about mobile commerce in Econsultancy's UK Mobile Statistics report.