Smart Phone Usage on the Increase

Should you be considering a website accessible via Smart Phones?

There are generally two leading mobile platforms, yes you’ve guessed it – Apple and Android. Though Blackberry has enjoyed its previous success, these new platforms seem to have gained momentum and surpassed the leader.  Considering that the Android entered the market much later, it has gained a great deal of market share and is no doubt on a trajectory of closing the gap with the current leader (Apple).

Nielsen is forecasting that Smartphone sales in the U.S. will exceed "dumb" phones in 2011.  With the price of smart phones continuing to fall, and their capabilities increasing, this is an easy forecast to believe. [Nielson Company]
As smart phones increase in usage and are replaced by traditional cell phone devices, more and more users will have access to the internet via these devices. The old ways of sitting in front of a desktop will not be the only way of browsing the internet. So there should be without doubt a strong consideration of ensuring that your website is also viewable via such devices.  Small businesses may not consider this, and may be unaware what platforms their customers are using. One way to check this would be via an Analytics analysis which will provide them an overall trend of visitors, browsers, and platforms.
The trend is smart devices, and businesses with web exposure should equip themselves and be educated that there is a potential loss of business if websites are not geared towards such platforms.

 

 

 

The following graphs represent trends of Smart Phones sales surpassing the “dumb” phones, and another reason why users will use and have access to browsers from these plat forms. 

[Source: Ehud Gelblum, Morgan Staney Research]

 

 

Global markets trends clearly show that in the coming year’s smart phone device sales will outpace desktop sales, and another reason why small business websites should be ready for this mobile platform.

[Source: Ehud Gelblum, Morgan Staney Research]

 

 

As small businesses, and website developers you should be seriously considering mobile websites in your marketing mix.  Devices should be automatically detected and re-directed to the appropriate page associated to its screen size.

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