Where is your phone now?

You heard me.

The fact that we know where our smartphone is at all times speaks for itself.

People may not know where their kid is at the moment, but their smartphone… ha!

This is the time we live in.

(Smartphone addiction is better than smallpox, am I right?)

Since we are so much into our cell phones, it’s a good idea to get to know the latest mobile internet usage statistics.

What does the future hold for mobile internet?

The moment we started using mobile internet, the world changed. Browsing, instant messaging, local searches, videos, you name it. Our lives will never be the same again…...

We simply can’t live without the internet anymore!

Let’s see some stats before we start, shall we?

Mobile Internet Usage Statistics (Editor’s Pick) 

  • Americans spend more than 5 hours every day using their phones. 
  • 5.11 billion people have mobile phones in 2019.
  • 2 billion Asians have internet access.
  • More than 50% of all video streaming comes from mobile phones.
  • More than half of teenagers are addicted to their mobile phones. 
  • Ecommerce grows about 3 times faster than brick-and-mortar businesses.
  • 3.2 billion people use social networks in 2019. 
  • The average mobile phone user spends about 2 hours on social networks daily.

Without the internet, there wouldn’t be contemporary successful businesses, fast and easy communication with friends and family, and… entertainment.

All this is now more accessible than ever, thanks to our handheld devices and the comfort they offer.

Let’s see now mobile internet usage statistics in more detail.

1. Mobile internet exists since 1997.

Could you imagine using your old device that we mentioned in the introduction to scroll through Instagram? Hilarious, isn't it? The pioneer mobile phone that had internet was the Nokia 9000 Communicator, launched in Finland.

It could send texts, make and receive calls, and send and read emails. When Nokia 9000 arrived in the UK, one had to pay £1,000 to get it.

2. One-third of Americans would rather give up sex for three months than give up using a smartphone for a week.

Mobile usage statistics suggest that smartphone addiction is no joke. Mobile intelligence developer Dev asked 355 US citizens older than 18 about their mobile usage habits. More than 100 examinees said they would rather give up sex than their smartphone for a week.

This rather startling stat underscores a worrying trend found in smartphone addiction statistics. But it should be noted that it is not the smartphone they would miss but the fear of missing out important information and events and fear of boredom. This means that a lot of people neglect real-life relationships just to scroll their devices pointlessly, as mobile usage stats warn us.

3. Millennials think they could spend less time on their smartphones.

Baby Boomers and Gen X are not mobile phone natives. Millennials, on the other hand, think they could spend time on their smartphones less often.

(You can't spend your entire life on social media, can you? And no, that's not a challenge!)

Almost 80% of millennials respond to their texts within 15 minutes. This indicates that the average smartphone data usage on a daily basis leads to addiction, at least when it comes to this generation. That’s why we should do our best to become less dependent on our handheld devices.

4. In 2012, we used our phones 88 minutes per day. Today, we use them 203 minutes per day.

We use our phones for 3 hours and 23 minutes. Every day!

If we take a look at the latest data consumption trends, we can see that this is hardly surprising. Mobile phones are now our buddies, personal assistants, and connection to the world.

We use them to read the news, watch TV and videos online, book your vacation in just a few clicks, and even manage grocery deliveries.

It's there to help you, that little modern miracle called smartphone!

Mobile device usage statistics for 2018 show that in the years to come, we could watch videos on our smartphones more than TVs - for the first time ever.

5. In 2019, the share of desktop browsing drops under 49%.

For the first time in history, smartphones and tablets are taking over when it comes to browsing the internet. Mobile phones are slowly taking over since 2009, and now businesses can’t imagine having a website that is not mobile-friendly.

Mobile vs desktop internet usage statistics for 2018 show that desktop browsers still hold the throne in the UK, US, and Australia. However, according to predictions, it is only a matter of time when smartphones will take over browsing the internet entirely. 

6. 95% of Facebook users use smartphones to access it. 

What do we primarily use mobile internet for?

It’s probably not hard to guess — social networks. Cell phone data usage statistics reveal that most data is used for checking out social networks sites.

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7. Two-thirds of all YouTube searches come from smartphones.

Almost 70% of all streamed YouTube videos come from smartphones (tablets are not included). It is estimated that YouTube records one billion smartphone views on a daily basis. At the same time, it is the most popular video streaming service, right ahead of Netflix.

8. The worldwide percentage of mobile internet traffic at the beginning of 2019 was 48%.

We have to point out that tablets are not included in this number (tablets and smartphones combined comprise 57% of global online traffic). It might be interesting to mention that phone internet is mostly used in Asia - not America or Europe. Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Nearly 60% of people in Asia are using their smartphones for browsing the net, less than 39% in North America, while 54% of Africans are using their mobile internet to go online.

These people download more than 180 billion applications every year, and predictions are that these numbers will go up to 200 billion by 2020.

9. M-commerce is taking over e-commerce.

Could you imagine yourself visiting brick-and-mortar shops without checking their offers online first? The increasing number of people are leaving traditional stores and...

... migrate to the web.

Mobile vs desktop usage data for 2018 suggests that consumers are using mobile phones for shopping. Online buying is one of the reasons we love the internet so much, but we still mostly do it from our computers. The question is - for how long?

UX developers and designers are working hard to optimize every pixel of mobile-friendly sites so that we could soon order and pay for the items by the face recognition option.

The massive m-commerce breakthrough happened in 2017, and some of the predictions are that mobile internet usage will go up because of the mobile-friendly shops and growing habits of shopping online.

10. 62% of mobile users make purchases online.

Mobile commerce is becoming unstoppable, despite the dominating desktop purchases.

According to recent data, the e-commerce market will turn into m-commercemobile commerce in no time. More than half of users already make online purchases via their smartphone, as mobile usage statistics for 2018 indicates. 

11. Financial inclusion starts with smartphones.

The World Bank calculated that there are 20% less unbanked people since the m-banking stepped on the scene. The first mobile bank was developed in Kenya in 2007, where users could transfer money by sending SMS.

This system is now used in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania by the majority of the citizens. The growth of this technology is expected to affect mobile data usage growth in the entire continent of Africa.

12. Education is blooming in third world countries, thanks to cell phones.

Students who didn’t have access to educational material can now get proper education by using tablets and mobile phones. They can access libraries online and download the entire semesters and classes to their phones. The material could be later accessed while they’re on the go.

Mobile data usage statistics can be pretty useful, don't you think?

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13. Smartphones are used in health education and prevention.

Did you know that women in Nigeria are getting free reminders and advice during pregnancy and the first months of baby's life via smartphone apps? That's so cool!

Similar software exists in Mozambique where the HIV patients are notified about their treatments and appointment dates.

This is how the average mobile data usage can be shifted from pointless scrolling through Instagram photos to making a real difference for our minds and health.

14. Google has 3.5 billion search requests every day.

When it comes to mobile search, Google is an absolute king with 65% of the market share (forecast to reach 87% in 2022). According to these stats, people use Google around 40,000 times every second. What are we looking for the most? Weather, maps, calculator, translation, YouTube to MP3 conversion, online connection speed test, news, and Donald Trump are the most common search queries, according to global mobile data traffic for 2018.

15. 10 years ago, mobile traffic share was 0.7%.

From 0.7 to 52.2% in 10 years! This growth was stimulated by social media usage, blogging, and relocating all sorts of services from desktops to handheld devices.

At the moment, there are almost 2 billion mobile-friendly websites on the global level. Moreover, cloud gaming is primed to consume 50% of 5G data traffic by 2022.

As you can guess, this number will skyrocket in the years to come. Since mobile internet usage is growing by the year, web developers will have no choice but to continue producing mobile-friendly websites.

16. 70% of mobile users have an aversion toward mobile ads. 

Online advertisers could benefit from this information because the majority of the marketing budgets are devoted to mobile ads which two-thirds of mobile users dislike.

On the other hand, a lot of users who dislike ads are willing to see video ads if they are attention-grabbing and engaging, mobile data usage statistics suggest.

17. Half of the mobile clicks are accidental.

Have you ever heard of fat finger syndrome?

(It's not what you think!)

This is the syndrome responsible for half of all ad clicks on mobile phones. But for advertisers and those who charge clicks, the fat finger syndrome is more than beneficial.

In any case, clicking on mobile ads by accident is one of the main reasons that the bounce rate is higher for mobile phones than desktops, according to mobile device usage statistics gathered in 2019.

18. Three-quarters of all American citizens check emails on their mobile phones.

Around 75% of smartphone users prefer checking and answering emails on the go, while only 25% use desktop computers for the same thing.

Those who check their emails on the go are mostly aged 18-24, while those who prefer using desktops to write an email are older than 25, according to mobile usage statistics in 2019.

19. 70% of mobile internet usage comes from Wi-Fi networks.

Messaging, making calls, or just browsing the web, mobile users do it mostly through Wi-Fi connections. Around 30% of all mobile communication is made through carriers’ mobile networks. Does this mean that mobile users are still not ready to pay more for carriers’ mobile networks and some additional gigabytes? How long until our need to have the internet all the time will surpass the Wi-Fi availability?

These are questions for mobile data traffic statistics in the years to come, and it is going to be interesting to see whether mobile data will outperform Wi-Fi usage.

20. When are we online the most?

It looks like the answer to this question depends on how old we are. Baby boomers are using their mobile data usually in the morning, between 9 and 11 am, while Generation X and millennials surf the web in the evening, between 8 pm and midnight.

Either way, most smartphone users keep their devices nearby. Around 51% check their phones a few times per hour.

These mobile web statistics are important information because marketers will know when is the best time to post content catered to their specific targets.

In Conclusion

Smartphones are TOTALLY taking over from desktop computers.

Whether we talk about online shopping or the weather forecast for the weekend, we are more likely to search for this information by using our mobile phones.

When it comes to the question, “what we are using our mobile internet mostly for?” the answer is pretty straightforward - social media, instant messaging, and watching videos across different platforms, as mobile web browsing statistics indicate.

That said, it is safe to say that we are now more likely to shop online than ever. However, the story doesn’t end here. Checking emails, doing video calls, and even managing a team online are only but a few things that modern mobile technology brought us.

Many experts believe that mobile devices will outperform desktop computers. But that doesn’t mean the latter will become obsolete. After all, it is not possible yet to complete complex tasks by using smartphones and tablets.

In any case, we can conclude by stating that mobile internet usage will continue to be responsible for online fun, fitness, socializing with friends and family, online shopping, education, health, and much more.

Wait for it, we are not done yet!