Commentary

U.S. Web Traffic Stalls As Traffic In China, India, and Brazil Grows

Adobe Analytics released some interesting findings at Mobile World Congress this week. The company analyzed data from 1.7 trillion visits to more than 16,000 mobile Web sites and 130 billion app launches from more than 1,000 apps from January 2014 through January 2017. Data was from the U.S., EMEA, and APAC regions.

Among the findings:

--The U.S. is no longer bringing new users to the Internet: With U.S. web traffic plateauing, smartphone growth in China, India, and Brazil is responsible for driving over 400 million new people online.

--China and Brazil are leading smartphone traffic: By 2018, China is expected to have 37% smartphone traffic (up 6%) with each percentage point bringing millions of new users online; Brazil will have 45% (up 9%). 

--Consumers in developing nations are bypassing infrastructure: The lack of infrastructure needed for desktop Web means that consumers are jumping straight to smartphones to access the Internet—that represents a 34% higher share growth.

--Tablets are failing to make a comeback: Despite steep discounts, share of traffic on tablets decreased or remained flat in every country around the world.

--With U.S. saturated, mobile engagement is new battleground: Double-digit declines in both app installs and launches (38%, 28%) means that brands have a large mobile audience but need focus on retention.  

--In the U.S., Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is welcomed by consumers: It now accounts for 7% of all of traffic for top U.S. publishers.

“There are two big takeaways for mobile marketing practitioners in the United States. The first takeaway is that the shift to smartphones shows no signs of slowing down and the growth is occurring as consumers shift away from desktops and tablets. Some brands may have a large mobile audience, but gaps in the experience could drive users to easily look elsewhere for alternatives. Marketers need to begin thinking mobile-always and not just mobile-first to ensure they are offering the best experience. They need to deliver experiences that are simple to navigate, and are more personalized to individuals," Becky Tasker, senior managing analyst, Adobe Digital Insights, told RTBlog via email.

Further Tasker said: "From a global perspective, there’s a lot of insight into where the growth is coming from in the next few years. ...Developing nations, for instance, are seeing 34% higher smartphone share growth compared to affluent nations, which at the surface signals a big opportunity. True as that is, there are limitations as well. The surge in smartphones comes on the heels of a more incomplete infrastructure, which also means greater lag on the mobile experience. Load times could be a challenge, and brands must consider this as they assess and design for these areas.”

 

1 comment about "U.S. Web Traffic Stalls As Traffic In China, India, and Brazil Grows".
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  1. Bob Gordon from The Auto Channel, February 28, 2017 at 11:52 a.m.

    Well its finally happened, the chickens have come home to roost, the baby that was thrown out with the bathwater has gone MIA. When Google unleashed its zoo of algorithm changes it f****d up search results enough so that searchers left in disgust...spamy web sites as top SERPs...true content publications (like us of course)  relegated to SERP pages that are invisible to viewers...paid advertising dominating search results, children at Google trying to fix what was not broken...unless google returns to the pre panda, penguin and other harmful “improved” algorithms the editorial advertising supported element of the web will fade away to nothing...and then watch the number of web viewers disappear.

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