Smartphone is now the most important internet device

The new Ofcom Communications Market Report (UK) is out today and it has revealed that the smartphone has overtaken laptops as the most important device for online access.

According to the Ocfom report, smartphone internet access has now reached 33% of adult internet users (16+), compared to 30% who use a laptop, 19% using a tablet and 14% who use desktops. With a collection of devices like netbooks and games consoles taking up the remaining share.

UK is a smartphone society

Two-thirds of adults now have a smartphone which is an increase of 27% since 2012 and 45% of phone users make purchases online, alongside 44% who use it for online banking.

The growth in the last few years has been massive, not just among the younger generations, but those in middle age too, as the graph above shows.

The lower social demographic groups still hold the highest percentage of smartphone ownership, it has simply grown over the last few years as have the other groups.

What does it mean for your website?

The signs over the last few years have indicated that smartphones were going to replace ‘standard’ screen devices, but the very large indicators over the last few months, and the Ofcom report today, should make every website owner take notice, and take action if needed.

It means that those websites who haven’t yet made the switch to a responsive website or other method of content delivery on smartphones are at risk of it impacting their business. This is for many reasons, not least of which:

• Your website is likely to be demoted in mobile versions of search engines like Google – making it more difficult for your customers to find you.
• Your content is difficult to navigate and read on a mobile device – making it cumbersome, sluggish and unreadable for the visitors that manage to find your site.
• Your business’s professionalism is at stake – a user’s perception of a business’s quality is directly related to their experience of your website.

Distortion regularly help businesses and organisations take the step up to a responsive, mobile-friendly website. If you don’t have a responsive website and you want to have a chat to see if we can help, get in touch.