What is the difference in percentage between the users preference and accessing the internet using a smartphone and a laptop?

Are you reading this article on your desktop (or laptop) or on your smartphone? That is the basic question at the heart of this article.

Where you access internet is also an important question. These statistics and trends will influence many industries. It also influences where they put their efforts and investments. Mobile websites have started becoming a lot more usable, sleek, and competitive. More people started getting smartphones and using them for a wide variety. The processing power of smartphones now rivals the desktops of the past. They are certainly on par with some laptops. They can do practically anything, reducing the gap even further.

We can't go over every last statistic and details regarding this comparison. Nonetheless, here are some of the key facts, statistics, and topics you should be thinking about, whether for your business plans or personal interests:

Mobile vs. Desktop Usage Today

For starters, where are we at today? Most people reading this likely use both a mobile device and a desktop or laptop. While some people favor one or the other, that can make things difficult in terms of optimization. Businesses struggle to find the best way to communicate with people. Therefore, businesses split their technical focus on different user's personal experiences. 

If we are looking at things in terms of market share, as of January 2022 mobile has taken the lead at just above 55 percent of the market, with desktop devices taking up 42 percent. The remaining three percent can be attributed to tablets, which while not widely used, still are a part of the online environment (although act more like mobile devices in most cases, due to their operating systems). 

What is the difference in percentage between the users preference and accessing the internet using a smartphone and a laptop?

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We would like to note, however, that this data is worldwide. If we were to look at these numbers for United States, about 50 percent of people use a desktop while 46 percent of the market share goes to mobile devices. Tablets make up 4 percent.

Time spent on websites still favors desktops, with 55.9 percent of the time, perhaps because most time spent on phones is on specific apps or messaging other people. Additionally, many websites are designed with desktops in mind, and the most functionality from them can be received that way. This is changing, but it will likely be some time until we see true balance in this regard. However, looking at things overall, you’ll find that about half of all internet traffic comes from mobile phones.

People looking for a better internet connection and faster speeds will still want to use their desktops, as a fixed connection is on average faster than a mobile one by quite a margin. This may change a bit with 5G technology, however (more on that later). Experiencing slow connection while on your mobile or desktop? Your internet might be the problem! Check out this list of internet service providers and their plans.

From looking at the chart above, you can see that general usage of mobile devices is on the rise as compared to desktops, perhaps as a result of people being able to do more on their smartphones over the years, and smartphones becoming easier and more intuitive to use. More people are owning more mobile devices as well, with an example being one or two-family computers but everyone owns a smartphone.

Searching and Immediate Access

Nearly 100,000 Google searches are made every second. This is a practically unfathomable number and showcases how much we rely on search engines. Searching is how we find most content (you probably found this article via a search), and websites and companies will spend millions on SEO endeavors to make sure that they are on top of the results. Working with Google is necessary to succeed online, it seems, but what does that mean for mobile usage? What comparisons can be made?

Here are a few differences and facts you should know:

  • Mobile searches consist of about 60 percent of all search volume. The exact measurements can vary. The percentage can vary greatly depending on the search topic.
  • Not only are the number of searches different between mobile and desktop users, but how people search and what people search for will vary depending on the device used. More locally focused searches happens more often on a mobile device. More general questions are used on desktops. 
  • While the statistics change far too often, we would like to note that search rankings can and do change based on whether you search on mobile or desktop. You can try this out for yourself. Sometimes the changes will be small. The topic can determine a lot in these instances.
  • How long do people stay on websites after their search or decision? According to Semrush, people are not staying as long on mobile sites when compared to previous years. Desktop users have no clear trend. This might not necessarily mean that people have lower attention spans on mobile, but perhaps, mobile sites are more efficient or people go on mobile sites for shorter tasks or information gathering.

The Difference in eCommerce

People buy a lot of goods online, either virtual or physical. And the pandemic has only served to fast-track this trend, with everything from groceries to clothes now being delivered from online orders in quantities never before considered.

Whether you run a website, online store, small business, or medium-sized enterprise, Kinsta's premium managed hosting services offer the best performance and professional support. Yet on what devices do people order from? 

  • Based on the data we have available, it seems that more people are ordering goods on mobile, whether on the couch or out on the go (we cannot be certain either way), than ever before. 
  • However, we would like to note that many businesses have not perfected their mobile experience yet, leaving customers more willing and able to go to a competitor. This is seen in the conversion rates listed below and is a clear sign that businesses need to invest and research more into mobile experiences.
  • Interestingly, while plenty of people are willing to shop around online and look at potential products, more people like to sit down with their desktop or laptop to make a purchase. The eCommerce conversion rate for desktops was 4.81 percent while the rate for mobile devices was only 2.25 percent. When people sit down, they want to make a purchase.
  • When people make purchases online, the cart gets bigger on the desktop. The average cart size was 24 percent higher for desktop users and 14 percent higher on tablets than for mobile devices.
  • Around the world, more people are getting smartphones and mobile devices than desktops, which can explain the jump. Unless people are enthusiasts or need it for work, it can be justified not having a decent laptop or even a laptop at all. Everyone does need a phone, however.
  • Even in the business-to-business world, about 50 percent of inquiries come from mobile devices, and the source seems to indicate that the percentage is rising. Even working people will be using their phones more to determine future business plans and contracts.

Social Media

To many people, the most important change in modern life is social media, as an unignorable part of our daily lives and many people cannot go without it. About a quarter of all digital media consumption is on social media. Here’s a bit more on that trend and what the role of desktops still is:

  • Most of social media usage is taken in on mobile, perhaps in large part because the social media giants invest in it so much. Twitter was designed with phone users in mind, and some apps such as Snapchat barely even bother with a desktop client at all. They just assume phone usage.

While there is a clear note that more social media usage are on phones, how does each social media network break down things exactly?

What is the difference in percentage between the users preference and accessing the internet using a smartphone and a laptop?

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  • Even LinkedIn, which is by far the least casual social media site, is still dominated by mobile usage. It will be safe to say that any future social media site that pops up will have to have a strong mobile infrastructure and design or be doomed from the get-go.
  • Social media usage in particular is dominated by the mobile device market, perhaps because social media sites have invested so much time and money into making the perfect (if addictive) mobile experience. About 83 percent of social media usage is on a mobile device, compared to 15 percent from desktops or laptops.
  • Furthermore, about half of people using social media only use it on their phones. In some cases, this might be because a social media app is only available on mobile, but clearly, much of it is because people simply do not feel the need to use it on a desktop.

Of course, while many of these statistics will stay relatively in stone, the fabric of social media is changing constantly, and the apps we use might change over months or even weeks.

Media Use, Streaming, and the Usage of Our Free Time

How are people spending their time on either their phones or their computers? Is there something about a mobile device that convince us to waste our time, or is it the opposite? What do the capabilities of each device have to offer the casual user?

The exact answers to these questions has to do with the apps and programs that people use as well as the specifications of the devices. If a popular desktop app or program gets a mobile version that can do the same thing or in some cases, even more, we are likely to see a shift in the numbers. Rarely do we see the opposite occur, although for certain tasks a larger screen and proper keyboard are much more popular (few people will prefer to write their papers or long documents on a smartphone).

Furthermore, we are going to see an increase in mobile usage as more people can get a better and more consistent connection on their mobile devices, mobile devices trend towards larger screen sizes (with better picture quality and potential resolutions), and more apps designed perfectly for mobile.

Here are a few numbers to showcase the trends:

  • In terms of just general free time usage, the numbers may shock you. Americans spend an average of 5.4 hours each day on their phones, checking them an average of 63 times each day (probably without even realizing it) and 6.5 hours each day being online in general.
  • About eight hours per day on average we are streaming content, and we have on average subscriptions to four streaming services. We are spending more of our time each day connected virtually than we are not, and whether that is an interesting trend or an alarming one depends on one’s perspective and the long-term effects of this screen usage.
  • People do like to watch videos on their mobile devices. As of 2016 half of all video views came from mobile devices, and this number will only rise as mobile devices can guarantee an improved viewing experience and better internet connection.
  • Mobile gaming is clearly on an upward trend as well, though the situation might be a little different from other forms of usage. Only 25 percent of gaming revenue comes from PC usage, while 47 percent comes from mobile gaming (the remaining 28 percent comes from console gaming). This is even though gaming desktops and consoles can run more games at higher levels of performance.
  • Some of this might be because mobile games are easily accessible, and additionally because gaming consoles and gaming desktops can be rather expensive. 
  • This also might be because monetization models on mobile devices are more aggressive, as opposed to the more common purchase and play model with console games.
  • While in some ways we can expect the gaming revenue trend to continue and the mobile share of the market to go up, there are natural ups and downs in the console market and even the PC market based on major releases and new consoles. Those trends will need to be examined on a larger scale when we have more data in a few years.

The Impact of 5G

Above nearly anything else, the available technology and developments shape these trends, and that not only include apps and potential smartphone use cases but the base technology of mobile service as well. And while 5G has not fully rolled out by any means, in 2022 we will start to see more of its usage, and more people will notice the benefits. In some cases, the improvements will be minimal. In the most extreme cases, people might see their mobile data download speeds increase by ten times or more.

This could have a significant impact on what people do on their phones. Most current apps and tasks such as online banking and checking social media or email can easily be done with 4G technology. 5G can allow for easy streaming of content. It means clear video calls from anywhere with 5G coverage. This is just the beginning. People will feel even less tethered to their desktops than before. They might only stick to them for intensive tasks such as gaming and the benefits of a bigger screen.

While 5G technology has a lot of advantages, many people still rely on public Wi-Fi but it is quite unsafe since it’s relatively easy for a hacker on the same network to access personal information. But with the use of software like ExpressVPN and SurfShark, it encrypts your entire internet connection to protect all your communications, even over unsecured networks. Some VPN providers have this multihop feature which means that you can connect from multiple locations at once, truly masking your physical location.

Conclusion

Whatever you use the most, you have to consider the importance of the balance between desktop and mobile devices. What is used most is what will be optimized for, and while there will always be setups for both, we can see the future in these statistics. Try to take note of the above and use it when making personal buying or general business decisions. If you know what is coming, you will be better able to make the right choice. We will keep an eye on things in the meanwhile, and we hope that this article proved interesting and helpful for you.

FAQ

How do I check my mobile data usage?

It’s easy to check how much mobile data you’ve used and how much you’ve got left on your cell phone. If you’re using an iPhone, go to the Settings app, choose Mobile, and scroll down to the option for Mobile Data. 

If you’re an Android user, you must tap your Settings app, go to Connections, and check out Data Usage. Pixel Androids are a little different, but the process is similar. You go to Settings > Network and Internet > Internet, then tap Cog to see your App data usage. 

Why is my mobile data so slow?

If you’re experiencing slow mobile data, there are a few things that could be happening. First, you may not have full network coverage - check that you have coverage. It may also be that your phone is overloaded with apps, so it’s not functioning at full capacity. Try to clean up your apps and delete the ones you’re not using. 

The hardware on your phone may be old or outdated. If you have a phone that’s a few years old and trying to run modern apps and data, you may encounter issues. 

What are the uses of the internet in business?

It’s practically impossible to do business without the internet. You will use the internet for every part of your day, whether an employer or an employee. You use it in recruitment efforts, to post jobs and hold interviews, for meetings, for documents and presentations, for social media and marketing, for daily communication - the list is endless. 

We rely much less on phone calls and international business travel nowadays, because the internet has replaced them. It’s faster, cheaper, and more convenient. 

What are the three main uses of the internet?

Based on statistics, we know that phone usage is increasing, and so is mobile internet usage. Over 50% of unique internet access sessions are done via mobile phone. And that’s because people primarily use the internet for social media, whether communicating with friends, searching for the latest news, or checking up on their favorite celebrities. 

Communication is one of the main reasons people use the internet. In addition to emails and texting apps, video calls have gone up dramatically after 2020, and they now represent one of the top reasons why people go online. 

What do I do if my mobile data is not working

The best course of action is to find a Wi-Fi connection if your mobile hotspot isn’t working. There are Wi-Fi connections that are free for all, but they are not secure. A password-protected Wi-Fi connection might come from a coffee shop, a bank, or an institution. 

Alternatively, try to troubleshoot your mobile data network. It’s a cliche, but check if your mobile data is turned on. If that’s not the issue, turning your phone off and then on again can also fix it. Lastly try resetting your network settings, updating your software, and checking your general mobile data coverage can also yield the solution to your problem.

How many people use their phones to access the Internet?

92.1% of internet users access the internet using a mobile phone. There are approximately 4.32 billion active mobile internet users. Africa has the highest proportion of internet traffic from mobile devices - 69.13%. There will be over 1 billion 5G connections worldwide by 2025.

What is the difference between smartphone and computer?

One of the biggest differences between smartphones, tablets, and computers is their input device. Most traditional computers use a keyboard and a mouse, whereas smartphones and tablets use a touch screen interface. Some tablets and smartphones accept peripherals, allowing the use of a mouse and keyboard.
According to industry analysts, this is because smartphones are outperforming laptops in terms of features and have become consumers' main computing devices. The third-most popular electronic device is tablets—just over one-third (34%) of people worldwide own at least one.