It is no secret that the majority of people online change devices several times a day, but new research from Google shows that a growing number of users are adopting a “mobile only” lifestyle.
The new “cross-device” research shows that while plenty of people still move from desktop to mobile to tablet as they need to throughout the day, but almost 40% of searchers have dropped desktop devices from their online search process entirely.
Google says the study is based on “behavioral measurement of a convenience sample of 11,964 opt-in Google users between January 1, 2016 and March 31, 2016,” and that the data was “calibrated to reflect a U.S. demographic of 18 to 49-year-old cross-device users.”
According to the findings, the average user spends 170 minutes on their smartphone every day, compared to 120 minutes on PC’s and approximately 75 minutes on tablets (that user owns a tablet). They most often use their smartphones at four physical locations:
- Home
- Work
- Stores
- Restaurants and Bars
Every day, approximately 80% of users search the internet on their smartphones, while 67% use PC’s. Over half (57%) move between devices throughout the day and 21% are likely to use more than one device simultaneously.
But, perhaps the most surprising finding of the study is that approximately 39% of people who conduct searches on an average day use only smartphones, compared to 32% who search only on PC. When measuring all internet use, rather than just searches, 27% of users are smartphone-only.
The report shows mobile usage varies by industry with year-over-year growth of mobile search for different markets.
If you want to find out more, check out the full report here.