“When we‘re talking about the post-PC world, we’re talking about a world where your new device, the devices that you use the most, need to be more portable, more personal, and dramatically easier to use than any PC has ever been.” (Apple CEO Tim Cook)
Anyone who has been working in digital communications for a while will know that every year since at least 2007 was meant to be the ‘year of mobile.’
Arguably every year has been the year of the mobile when you look back at the strides made on an annual basis.
But for 2013, a better way of phrasing it, may be to talk about the year of the post PC world. Here are 10 stats to underpin that point:
1 – As of 2012, PCs no longer consume the majority of the world’s memory chip supply, having dropped to under 50% for the the first time ever in Q2 2012.
2 – According to IDC, sales of desktops and laptops fell by 2.6% between 2011 and 2012, while the number of smartphones and tablets sold jumped by half.
3 – By 2015 there will be more tablets than PCs in the US.
4 – According to analyst Mary Meeker, mobile devices are now responsible for generating 13 per cent of all internet usage worldwide, compared to just four per cent in 2010.
Remember that this figure includes work, as well as consumer Internet traffic and here mobile phones and tablets represented 24% of all online sales in the US on ‘Black Monday’, compared to just six per cent two years ago.
5 – And worldwide there was a surge in mobile data traffic over Christmas.
In Belgium, the leading mobile operators saw a 100% growth in data, Spanish mobile operator Yoigo saw a 110% increase in mobile data volume while here in the UK, Everything Everywhere was prepared for a 98% data surge over New Year.
6 – In the US itself, more than half of consumer activity online on Christmas Day took place on mobile devices.
7 – Peope are disproportionately likely to buy via those mobile devices. Forrester found that 57% percent of smartphone owners actively seek out new product information compared to 41 percent of non-smartphone owners.
8 – Similarly, 44% of mobile travel searches resulted in a purchase, 30-50% of all restaurant searches are mobile
9 – Last year, 63% of the growth in social media use came through mobile apps and websites
10 – The breakout social media success story of 2012, Instagram, was directly driven by consumers buying smartphones and using them as ther main cameras, with digital camera shipments out of Japan decreasing by 40%+
So are we going to see the end of the PC? Certainly not, laptops and PCs will still have a place, for one thing in the workplace.
But for many consumers that’s what they will be – the grey box sitting on their desk. For others who have PCs at home, they will be one way of getting online among many.
When it comes to searching, consuming, interacting or buying, the device that will have primacy though will be the one that people have with them when the impulse to go online hits. More often that not, that won’t be a PC or even a laptop.
(This post was written using Pocket, Evernote and Blogsy on an iPad)
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Image credit (cc) br1dotcom
