Data Monday: The Growing Mobile Only Audience

by August 5, 2012

Last year, I looked at the growing number of mobile only Internet users. Since then, this population has continued to grow even faster across the World.

  • 31% of American adults who have cell phones use their phones for the majority of their Internet access. (source)
  • Among American adults (18-29) who use the Internet on their phones, 45% do most of their web surfing there. For all age groups, though, preferences are shifting away from desktops and laptops and toward mobile devices. (source)
  • 42% of UK adults that own a smartphone now say this device is the most important one for accessing the Internet. (source)
  • More than half of internet connections on the African continent are exclusively on mobile. (source)
  • Worldwide, 25% of mobile web users only use mobile web or very rarely use desktop websites. (source)
  • 102 million people accessed Facebook solely from mobile in June, 2012. That's a 23% increase over the 83 million mobile-only users in March. 18.7% of Facebook's 543 million monthly mobile users don’t visit its desktop site. (source)
  • About 30% of Facebook's users in India access the service from a mobile phone only. 30% of new Facebook users in India register on a mobile phone. (source)