Forty percent.
The number was embedded in an Expedia-Comscore workshop presented at PhocusWright, alongside lots of other data, and it got lost in the maelstrom. No one noticed.
But it was right there: 40% of visitors to US travel sites are seen as mobile only. Yes, ONLY. Compare this to 33% desktop only, and 27% using both devices.
So let's make the math easy for everyone. If you're still on desktop only (no decent mobile website, no apps), you can only reach 60% of the US population. How does that sound for the universal reach of the World Wide Web?
Whether this mobile only datapoint is accurate or not is not the question. The point is that the share is now so large that it is eating into traditional web traffic - and when looking at device usage patterns of teenagers, there is little doubt where the world is going next.
So mobile - smartphone and tablets - is the way to go. Only gamers and media hobbyists still buy desktops for the home. If anything, students and home workers get laptops. But even laptops, despite unbelievably cheap prices, are near losing the battle against tablets enabling access to cloud based apps. We're already into 3rd generation tablet devices, and the 1st generation is still kept and recycled as a useful device, for kids, or for the guest room.
In a mobile first world, many of the big moves in 2014 are easier to understand.
- Uber can be crowned as the global mobile pure player many observers had predicted would emerge from the mobile revolution.
2015: bookingsSeveral datapoints indicate the booking barrier is about to fall.
- Expedia and Comscore found that 80% of people having booked on a mobile device would do so again.
- Screen sizes are growing, with the average now near 5" (it was 4"in 2012).
- Responsive websites and mobile optimized booking experiences are now mainstream.
Everything points to 2015 being the pivotal year for mobile bookings. Many companies will then realise the hard way if they are in the mobile game for good.
NB:Mobile image via Shutterstock.
