Smartphone adoption is additional, rather than substitutional to PC use. Even in those countries where smartphone penetration is high, internet usage remains a PC-centric experience. Time spent per user is lower on mobile than on PC. Mobile internet consumption is constrained by smaller screens, ‘on the go’ use and more expensive data pricing. These constraints do not affect tablets to the same degree: screens are larger, usage is weighted more towards the evening hours when users are at home, and most traffic is through Wi-Fi connections. Across the EU5, non-PC page views accounted for 4.9% of internet page views in December 2011, with mobile accounting for 3.2% and tablets for 1.4% (Figure 14). It is harder to find reliable data across all EU27 countries. StatCounter, which monitor a sample of three million websites, estimate that mobile devices accounted for 4.5% of traffic in 2012, up from 0.5% in 2008.
16 | 53 Let’s Go Connected
8 May 2012