Mobile accounts for 77% of time online in the UK

"Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) now account for 77% of time online, up from 73% a year ago.
Females spend the greatest share of time on mobile devices at 84% compared to only 71% for males.
The ‘mobile only’ audience has grown by 7% points over the last year, up from 25% to 32% of the UK online adult population.
Platform share differs greatly by category. For example, smartphones account for over 85% share of time for instant messenger, coupons, maps, fitness trackers, books, social media, dating and online gaming categories. PCs and laptops account for over 50% of time spent on Education, Family and Automotive sites."
Source:  UKOM, January 2019

People in the UK check their smartphones every 12 minutes

"2008 was the year the smartphone took off in the UK. With the iPhone and Android fresh into the UK market, 17% of people owned a smartphone a decade ago. That has now reached 78%, and 95% among 16-24 year-olds. The smartphone is now the device people say they would miss the most, dominating many people’s lives in both positive and negative ways.
People in the UK now check their smartphones, on average, every 12 minutes of the waking day. Two in five adults (40%) first look at their phone within five minutes of waking up, climbing to 65% of those aged under 35. Similarly, 37% of adults check their phones five minutes before lights out, again rising to 60% of under-35s.
In contrast to a decade ago, most people now say they need and expect a constant internet connection, wherever they go. Two-thirds of adults (64%) say the internet is an essential part of their life. One in five adults (19%) say they spend more than 40 hours a week online, an increase from 5% just over ten years ago. For the first time this year, women spend more time online than men.
Over the last decade, better access to the internet has transformed how we interact with each other. Two-fifths of people (41%) say being online enables them to work more flexibly, and three-quarters (74%) say it keeps them close to friends and family.
The amount of time we spend making phone calls from our mobiles has fallen for the first time, as we increasingly use internet-based services such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Using a mobile for phone calls is only considered important by 75% of smartphone users, compared to 92% who consider web browsing to be important.
However, for many people, being online has negative effects. Fifteen per cent of people say it makes them feel they are always at work, and more than half (54%) admit that connected devices interrupt face-to-face conversations with friends and family. More than two in five (43%) also admit to spending too much time online."

Source:  Ofcom's report on Digital Dependency, 2nd August 2018

Full PDF of the 2018 Communications Market Report is here

26% of US adults are online 'almost constantly'

Source:  Pew Internet & American Life Project, 14th March 2018

Mobile Subscriptions as a percent of Population by Region, Q1 2017

Source:  Ericsson's Mobility Report, Q1 2017

Social media and internet usage in major countries

Source:  Pew Internet, 20th April 2017

3/4 of the UK population sometimes use a connected device when watching TV

"Three-quarters of the British population use a connected device while watching TV, a trend that rises to 93% in the under 25 age range, according to a new report from Google that highlights the rise of smartphone adoption.
The Google Consumer Barometer Report, a five-year study that includes 625 thousand interviews with consumers around the world, finds that in the UK three in four people now use a smartphone, a number that has nearly doubled in five years. The average Briton uses 3.3 internet-connected devices.
The proportion of daily internet users has increased from 56% in 2012 to 68% today. What's more, the public increasingly looks to the internet when they need information, with 84% of consumers choosing the internet over other mediums.
But the rise of smartphone usage has not eclipsed the use of desktop; 65% of respondents said they access the internet the same amount on smartphone as computer. That’s almost twice as many as in 2012, when the number was 35%.
Two in five Britons use a computer, a tablet and a smartphone, compared to one in ten people five years ago. On average, the British use 3.4 internet-connected devices, an increase from 2.3 devices in 2012.
More than half of the British public prefer to do a task digitally is they have a choice; with half of smartphone users choosing their phone as an alarm clock. For one third of the public the smartphone is their primary source of news and music."

Source:  Google Consumer Barometer, reported by The Drum, 27th February 2017

Over 50m people in the UK accessed the internet in December 2016

"Over 50 million users accessed the internet via their desktop, smartphone and tablet devices in December 2016.
- Share of minutes to mobile devices (smartphones + tablets) continued to increase. They now account for two-thirds of adults’ time online, with smartphones alone generating 50% of all minutes.
- There is a strong relationship between age and platform usage – 65% of online time among 18-24s is via a smartphone and this decreases with increasing age to only 31% for 55+s.
- Despite mobile taking the lion’s share of minutes, the desktop still has higher adult online reach (90%) compared to smartphones (70%) and tablets (47%).
- 74% of adults are multi-platform but this is lower among social class A, who are more likely to only use the desktop and social class E who are more likely to only use a mobile. 1 in 10 adults are now mobile only but this is higher among females (12%) than males (7%).
- Google’s total audience increased by 5% to 95.9% of the UK online population between September and December.  Google shopping (+1.5m) and Youtube (+2.3m) contributed to this uplift.
Snapchat enters the top 10 for total ‘time spent’ among adults – visitors spend on average nearly 6.5 hours per month on the social networking site.
- Predictably, retail sites dominated the top 10 growth sites in December with Home Retail Group (Argos) being the main beneficiary - up by 4.5 million unique visitors compared to September. Dixons, Tesco, Debenhams and John Lewis also added over 3 million users."

Source:  Data from UKOM, January 2017

India has overtaken the US to become the world's second largest online population

"India has overtaken the United States to become the world's second largest Internet market, with 333 million users, trailing China's 721 million. But a new report released today by the UN Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development also confirms that just six nations – including China and India – together account for 55% of the total global population still offline, because of the sheer size of their populations.
While Internet access is approaching saturation in richer nations, connectivity is still not advancing fast enough to help bridge development gaps in areas like education and health care for those in poorer parts of the world, according to the 2016 edition of The State of Broadband report.
Globally, an estimated 3.9 billion people are not using the Internet. But the Commission's new report estimates that, between them, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nigeria account for 55% of all unconnected people, while 20 countries – including the US – account for a full 75% of those not using the Internet. These findings suggest that targeted efforts in just a few key markets could help enormously in redressing the gaping 'digital divide' between those who are online and those still offline."
Source:  Press release from the ITU, 15th September 2016

19m unique browsers visited BBC Sport on 'Super Sunday' during Rio 2016

"BBC Sport cemented its position as the number one digital destination for sport as record numbers accessed digital services. This week has been the biggest ever week for BBC Sport online with 58.2m global unique browsers following the action from the Rio Olympics, the return of the Premier League and England’s Test match v Pakistan from around the world.
The new seven-day record for BBC Sport digital traffic smashes the previous record of 41.4m set during the first week of Euro 2016. Of the 58.2m unique browsers, 40.3m came from the UK, setting another personal best for the BBC.
And like many of the Olympians competing in Rio, BBC Sport beat its own record for daily traffic which stood at 14.6m unique browsers from the day England faced Wales at Euro 2016, five times since the start of the Games. It now stands at 19m for Super Sunday as fans followed Team GB’s historic medal haul.
Mobile
Audiences have been glued to the action on their mobile devices throughout the Games and the BBC Sport mobile app had its biggest ever week with 4.4m unique browsers. Sunday was a record day for mobile audiences overall too, with 2.7m browsers in the app contributing to 8.4m unique browsers overall, beating the previous record of 6.3m.
Personal
The opening week of the Games has also seen people personalise the BBC Sport digital service more than ever before, a record 347k unique browsers visited the ‘My Sport’ area of the website, with over 500k topics followed.
Online Video
An enormous 81.2m have accessed video clips, catch-up services and watched live streams across BBC Sport and BBC iPlayer since the start of the Games, with audiences using the digital service to watch both live and on-demand.
Team GB’s success has also led to a record week for the BBC Sport app on Connected TV with 1.74m browsers and an all-time high of 1.67m using the BBC’s Red Button+ service."
Source:  BBC Media Centre, 15th August 2016

A third of online Britons have had a 'Digital Detox'

"Ofcom’s Communications Market Report 2016 reveals how our reliance on the internet is affecting people’s personal and working lives, leading many to seek time away from the web to spend time with friends and family.
It finds that one in three adult internet users (34%), equivalent to 15 million people in the UK, has sought a period of time offline, with one in ten (11%) doing so in the last week alone.
Of these digital down-timers, 25% spent up to a day internet-free; 20% took up to a week off; and 5% went web-free for up to a whole month.
Many people found their time offline to be a positive experience: a third (33%) said they felt more productive, 27% found it liberating, while a quarter (25%) enjoyed life more. However, 16% experienced a ‘fear of missing out’ (‘FOMO’) while on the web wagon, 15% felt lost and 14% ‘cut-off’.
Ofcom’s report shows that faster internet access is more widely available than ever before, with take-up of superfast broadband2 and 4G on the increase.
With people better connected than ever before, they can spend more time doing what they love online – such as watching the latest on-demand series, or chatting with friends and family via instant messaging services, both of which have seen a recent surge in popularity.
Three in four internet users (75%) consider the web ‘important’ to their daily lives. Nearly eight in 10 (78%) agree it helps keep them up-to-date about current affairs and social issues, while almost two thirds (63%) credit it with inspiring them to try new things such as travel destinations, restaurants, recipes or entertainment.
As a result of the internet’s importance in many people’s daily lives, adult users in the UK currently spend an average of one day per week (25 hours) online; 42% say they go online or check apps more than 10 times a day, while around one in 10 (11%) access the internet more than 50 times daily.
Most internet users (59%) even consider themselves ‘hooked’ on their connected device – while a third (34%) admit they find it difficult to disconnect."

Source:  Ofcom's CMR Report 2016, 3rd August 2016

Full report here

Report Charts here

Over 15% of the UK population have been left behind by digital technology

[Experian split the UK into 3 classifications]
"Digital Dawdlers
Around 7.5 million (15.6 per cent of the population) people are being left behind in the digital revolution, either because of old age and a lack of know-how or interest in new technology, or by the limited or slow provision of broadband in the places where they live. Locations in the far reaches of Scotland feature highly in this group, alongside rural locations and seaside towns such Scarborough, Boston and Lowestoft.
Digital Devotees
About a third of people in the UK (32.4 per cent) fall into the leading edge users of digital technology. They have the most devices, spend more time on-line and use digital services for the widest range of activities. They are most at home in the digital world and would find it extremely hard to do without digital technology. There is a clear urban bias in evidence here. Locations in this group are dominated by London boroughs, as well as other metropolitan areas across the UK, including Manchester and Birmingham.
Day-to-Day Doers
About half of the population (52 per cent) are defined as practical day-to-day users of the internet and digital services. Their use is characterised less by enthusiasm for the latest technology and the must have gadget, and more by a set of practical uses that benefit them on a daily basis. This includes search, paying bills, entertainment and being active on social media and other forums. Locations that feature highly in this group include suburban areas and commuter towns, such as Epsom, Orpington and Altrincham."
Source:  Data from Experian, reported by Advanced Television,. 19th July 2016

US Smartphone users have 76 sessions per day on average, over 2.4 hours, with 2,617 touches

Key points -
“The average user engaged in 76 separate phone sessions a day. Heavy users (the top 10%) averaged 132 sessions a day.
Phone screen time was 2.42 hours for the average user, and 3.75 hours for the heavy user. That was time spent on everything from typing texts, swiping on Tinder, turning Kindle pages, and scrolling in Facebook.
People tapped, swiped and clicked a whopping 2,617 times each day, on average.
Nearly half of touches were guided by apps made by Alphabet and Zuckerberg. The other half were split among the other 700+ apps.”

Source - Analysis from dscout, 16th June 2016
Methodology:
"dscout’s web-based research platform pairs with a smartphone app to capture in-the-moment behaviors. For this study, we recruited a demographically diverse sample of 94 Android users from our pool of more than 100,000 participants. Then we built a supplementary smartphone tool to track every user’s interaction across 5 days, 24 hours a day.
And by every interaction, we mean every tap, type, swipe and click. We’re calling them touches."

Netflix has 75m subscribers, is available to 550m broadband homes

"In the fourth quarter, we added a record 5.59 million members as our big shows such as Narcos and Marvel’s Jessica Jones helped us grow membership to 74.76 million. This 5.59 million compares to a
forecast of 5.15 million and to prior year net additions of 4.33 million. For Q1, we are forecasting 6.10 million net additions vs. prior year of 4.88 million. On earnings, we stayed profitable in Q4 despite foreign exchange headwinds, and delivered operating income of $60m and net income of $43m. We expect similar modest operating income results for Q1, assuming current foreign exchange, as we invest in our international expansion. As a reminder, the guidance we provide is our actual internal forecast at the time we report, and we strive for accuracy in our guidance.
In September, we launched in Japan, followed by Spain, Portugal and Italy in October. We are very
pleased with the first few months of membership growth in these markets. Our international
contribution loss of $109 million in Q4 increased sequentially due to these launches. We anticipate Q1 international losses of about $114 million.
In early January at CES, we announced the availability of Netflix everywhere in the world except China.  Pricing is comparable to our existing plans and we have added support for Korean, Arabic, and Simplified & Traditional Chinese languages. Our move into 130 additional countries broadens our addressable market by 190 million broadband homes, on top of the 360 million we counted at the end of 2015 .
While the opportunity is large, our growth in these new markets will unfold over many years as we
improve our service. We are starting by primarily targeting outward‐looking, affluent consumers with
international credit cards and smartphones. As with every market we’ve launched, our approach is to
listen, learn and improve rapidly, adding more content, additional languages and a better Netflix
experience over time. Our global availability sets us up for continued growth for many years and we
continue to expect material global profits beginning in 2017.
[...]
In the US, we ended 2015 with nearly 45 million members, although our Q4 US net adds were down year over year, as expected (1.56m actual versus 1.90m prior year). Our high penetration in the US seems to be making net additions harder than in the past. Our forecast for Q1 US net additions is 1.75m, against a prior year actual of 2.28m. New credit/debit card rollover continues to be a background issue. In Q2 and Q3, we’ll be releasing a substantial number of our US members from price grandfathering on the HD plan and they will have the option of continuing at $7.99 but now on the SD plan, or continuing on HD at $9.99 a month. Given these members have been with us at least 2 years, we expect only slightly elevated churn. Our 2020 US contribution target remains at 40% and we are already at 34%."
Source:  Netflix Q4 2015 earnings letter, 19th January 2016

Home broadband use in the US has plateaued

Source:  Pew Research Center, 21st December 2015

China has 946m mobile web users

"How big is China’s mobile web? So big that it’s genuinely hard to comprehend. According to the latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China is closing in on the one billion mobile web user mark.
Specifically, MIIT says that there are 946 million mobile web users in China. The vast majority of them, more than 900 million, are accessing the web via mobile phones (as opposed to tablets or other mobile devices). And more of those mobile users are accessing the web via 4G, too: China has hit 270 million total 4G users."
Source:  Data on August 2015 from CNNIC, reported by Tech in Asia, 24th September 2015

Stats on Android & iOS visitors Pornhub

Source:  Blog post by Pornhub, 30th September 2015
(Link is safe for work)

33% of Buzzfeed's traffic comes from Facebook & 21% from Snapchat

"For starters, don’t think of BuzzFeed as a publisher of a single website that has great social media chops. It’s a “fully integrated social platform” whose Snapchat and Instagram channels are as important as — if not more important than — its natively hosted stuff. Want proof? Peretti read aloud BuzzFeed’s traffic proportions on the show:
23 percent: Direct to the site or apps
14 percent: YouTube views
2 percent: Google search to the site
6 percent: Facebook traffic to the site
27 percent: Facebook native video
4 percent: Images on Facebook
21 percent: Snapchat content views
3 percent: Other distributed platforms"

Source:  ReCode, 16th September 2015

UK Internet users spend nearly 3 hours a day online; mobile & tablets account for 56%

"IAB & UKOM publish “definitive” time people spend online - 2hrs 51 mins a day. Aims to clear up confusion around online media consumption figures. Mobiles and tablets account for over half (56%) of internet time.
The Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) and UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM) today published a definitive figure on how long people actively spend online each day, to bring clarity to the market by removing any confusion around the conflicting sources claiming to measure time online.
UKOM, the official cross-industry standards body that measures online audiences using approved comScore data, revealed that the average Briton online spent 2 hours 51 minutes per day actively using the internet at home and work (during the first six months of 2015).
Internet time is split 1 hour 16 minutes (45%) on PCs/laptops, 1 hour 9 minutes on smartphones (40%) and 26 minutes on tablets (15%).
“There’s a lot of confusion when it comes to the various sources claiming to measure how long people spend on different media,” said the IAB’s Chief Strategy Officer, Tim Elkington. “So, we wanted to put a stake in the ground for internet time to remove this misconception and help advertisers understand how much time they realistically have to play with to reach people online. It equates to about 1 in every 6 waking minutes¹.”
The data comes from a combination of meters measuring the behaviour of 73,000 people (a panel) plus thousands of sites and apps being tagged (site analytics).
The resulting figures purely measure “active attention”, that is, only the time people are actively using the internet to do something. Elkington explains: “If I’m surfing the internet on my PC but then start using a word document, the internet time is stopped even though the web page is still open. A similar approach is applied on mobile when internet activity is interrupted due to calls or texting.”
Social media overtakes entertainment in share of online time
The UKOM/comScore data reveals that 16.7% of all UK internet time (1 in every 6 minutes) across computers, tablets and smartphones is spent on social media – up from 12% two years ago. Social media has overtaken entertainment, whose share nearly halved from 22.1% to 12.4%.
Games follows next at 6% share – double that of two years ago (3%). Together, these activities account for over one third of Britons’ time online.
Share of time differs dramatically by device
Social media accounts for over double the share of mobile/tablet internet time (21.4%) than it does of desktop internet time (9.8%). Games (8.6% vs 2.3%), Instant Messaging (6.7% vs 0.8%) and News (4.8% vs 2.2%) also take up a much larger proportion of mobile internet time than desktop time. In contrast, entertainment accounts for over double the share of desktop internet time (18.5%) than it does on mobile/tablet (8.3%); for email, it’s over six times the share (5.0% vs 0.8%).
“When trying to reach consumers, advertisers can’t afford to think of time online as a homogenous entity,” said UKOM’s General Manager Scott Fleming. “Mobile internet time is more heavily skewed towards social networking and games whilst desktop is more loaded towards email and entertainment such as film and multimedia. “The most effective digital ad strategies recognise and take into account how behaviour and mind-set differ dramatically by device.”"

Source:  Press release from IAB UK, published 2nd September 2015

Mobile-only audience of UK news outlets as percentage of total UK audience

Source:  NRS, quoted in Journalism.co.uk, 26th August 2015

UK time spent online by access device, 2015

Source:  Ofcom's Communications Market Report, August 2015
Full report here
All charts here