New research from Ofcom has revealed that smartphones are now the leading device for browsing online over other popular devices such as laptops and tablets. Two-thirds of people in the UK now own smartphones which they use on a regular basis, spending nearly two hours a day browsing online, accessing their social media accounts and using banking and shopping applications.
Due to the shift in smartphone trends, it’s highly important for any business to ensure that their website is responsive to adapt to different shapes and sizes of devices such as smartphones and tablets. The latest Google update ranks websites based on their responsiveness over the standard design, so in order to avoid being penalised, ensure your web developers create your site based on responsiveness.
The Ofcom 2015 Communication Report, which was published at the beginning of August, found that there has been a huge shift in smartphone usage since 2014: 22% of internet users turned to their mobile-first in 2014, whereas this year a third (33%) of internet users see this device as important for their first-time searches. The age demographics of smartphone users is also on the rise – in 2012, only 19% of 55 to 64-year-olds owned a smartphone. Now, this has more than doubled, with 50% of this age category now owning a smartphone. One of the reasons of this dramatic yet positive increase is due to the introduction of 4G mobile data in the UK in 2012 (from EE), followed a year by later by their competitors Vodafone and O2. Subscriptions for 4G jumped massively from 2.7 million to 23.6 million by the end of 2014.
As mentioned previously, it is highly important for businesses to create responsive websites to meet the demands from the growing smartphone users, otherwise, you could be missing out on a huge market of customers.
