Mobiles Dominate Web Browsing

Thursday, June 25, 2020 - 14:35 by Graham Miller

Over 80 per cent of the time that Brits spend surfing the web is monopolised by portable devices, with new figures published by Ofcom indicating that smartphones are by far the most popular platform for internet access at the moment.

The study, covering trends in 2019, suggests that just four per cent of people across the country are tied exclusively to a traditional PC when it comes to browsing.

Analysts also asked respondents about how much of their time they dedicated to online activities each day, with this increasing by 17 minutes compared with the same report conducted a year previously.

In April this year it has been predicted that a typical web user in the UK spend just over four hours online every day, with people aged between 18 and 24 far more likely to leverage web-based services than people in older generations.

A wide range of activities are popular amongst British web users, with everything from safe shopping online to social media and gaming managing to rank highly.

The study indicated that a number of brands have become particularly prominent since lockdown measures relating to coronavirus were introduced. For example, video-conferencing platform Zoom managed to pull in 13 million users in the UK alone in April, which is impressive given that it had just over half a million to its name at the start of the year.

As well as making the most of mobile phones to harness all that the web has to offer, consumers are increasingly turning to additional internet-enabled devices to fulfil their entertainment needs in the home. Almost a quarter of those questioned said that they had some form of smart speaker, while additional integrated technology such as connected heating and lighting systems are found in just over a tenth of domestic premises.