The advent of smartphones launched a new era of the Internet, which began to gradually change and adapt more to mobile devices. Why is this happening and who generates more Internet traffic – mobile devices or traditional personal computers?
Internet Traffic Statistics
Nothing better depicts the evolution of the Internet than statistical data. Quite recently, the entire niche of the World Wide Web was occupied exclusively by computers, and the first emerging models of mobile devices could barely boast about a couple of percent of the Internet traffic generated. But by 2017, mobile devices were generating about 49 percent of the traffic, while Windows-based PCs were generating only 37 percent. In 2020, mobile devices accounted for just over half of the Internet traffic generated, and that percentage will only increase in the future. Yes, PCs are definitely not going away for a variety of reasons, but there is a clear upward trend in mobile Internet traffic, which will affect the entire Internet industry as well.
Reasons for changes
Changes in traffic are due to many factors, the main one being mobility. We use smartphones in transport, on walks, outdoors, in line, and even in bed. Mobile devices have become affordable and convenient, they have got big displays, they got powerful hardware and software. Modern smartphones have become almost a full-fledged substitute for ordinary computers, and it is from mobile devices that most of the network users enter social networks and streaming services, surf the Internet, choose and buy a variety of products, order services, play, read and watch an incredibly rich and diverse content. Moreover, modern man, despite all the socialization and globalization, is often in self-isolation, and smartphone helps to have fun, fun, informative and interesting time even being alone with himself.
Niches with the highest traffic growth
The year 2020 has been an incredibly good year for the online industry, as people increasingly prefer to shop for goods or order services online rather than go shopping on their own. The biggest increase in mobile traffic is in online commerce. In April 2020, the Google search engine recorded a record for the number of commercial queries. This dynamics is perfectly illustrated by Amazon, which in March-April 2020 hired an additional 100 thousand employees due to the rapid increase in the number of online orders. Experts believe that the growth of online commerce turnover for the year will increase by 20%, and this trend will continue in the future. There has been a huge increase in online courier services.
Delivery of products and goods became popular mainly due to the introduction of quarantine measures, but even after the situation normalizes, interest in such services is unlikely to decrease to “pre-quarantine” indicators. In addition, delivery services are connected with Internet commerce, so these niches not only showed the greatest increase in mobile traffic, but are also the most promising. Online-education has become popular with Internet users, and all kinds of webinars and online courses have also seen impressive growth in traffic.
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