The same research has shown that Apple devices represent more visits than those based on Android.
The results of a study conducted by Walker Sands Communications – a marketing and public relations firm – has revealed that 23.14 percent of visits to websites that occurred in December 2012 were of the mobile commerce nature, having stemmed from smartphones and tablets.
This was an increase of 84 percent over the figures that were recorded a year earlier.
When compared to January 2011, there was an increase of 283 percent in mobile commerce traffic. The study that compiled these statistics was based on two million unique visits across websites from a range of different industries.
This represents a tremendous growth in mobile commerce site visits in a period of less than 2 years.
According to the Walker Sands Communications director of web services and social media, John Fairley, “Mobile traffic is increasing at a significant rate each year. In January 2011 we found mobile traffic accounted for only 6% of total web site visits. Now, nearly two years later, mobile accounts for nearly a quarter of all web site visits”.
Fairley went on to say that he feels that mobile commerce isn’t simply an option any more. It has become a necessity, and companies must come up with a website that is both smartphone and user friendly in order to be able to keep up with the traffic that has recorded a consistent doubling with each passing year.
In the last quarter of 2011, smartphone and tablet mobile commerce traffic made up 12.59 percent of total web traffic. In the first quarter of last year, it represented 13.41 percent of web traffic. In the second quarter, it rose to 16.63 percent, whereas in the third quarter it stepped up to 17.53 percent. Finally, in the last quarter of last year, it skyrocketed to a tremendous 23.14 percent, which is nearly a quarter of all web traffic.
The research also looked into the mobile commerce activity as broken down to the operating system and the form of device. What the study discovered was that 52 percent of the mobile traffic came from a device based on the Apple iOS operating system. Android came in second at 43 percent.
