A benchmark study of 20 Dutch websites reveals that in the past six months the amount of visits originating from mobile devices has doubled. The study shows that in May 2011 4.3% of total website visits was generated by mobile devices. Six months ago, in November 2010, the observed average for the same sites was 2.16%. If the growth continues at this rate, it is expected that in the first half of 2012 this will be more than 10%. Smartphones, tablets and mobile music players are considered ‘mobile devices’ in this study.

The biggest growth is detected in the use of the Apple iPad and Android phones. On average, the iPad has a 38% share in mobile visits, in November 2010 this was 28%. For phones using the Android operating system, the share in the mobile visits grew from 12.5% in November 2010 to 18% in May 2011.
The top 5 mobile operating systems currently are : iPad (38.1%), iPhone (30.8%), Android (18.1%), Blackberry OS (4.5%) and iPod (4, 1%). SymbianOs and Windows Mobile are now on the sixth and seventh place.

The 20 sites together attract more than 5 million visitors a month and are distributed over various sectors such as news, entertainment, travel, training and e-commerce. This study specifically looked at the visits to the normal websites, the figures are based on the Goolge Analytics accounts of these websites . Obviously these figures will differ from visits to special mobile sites and mobile apps.

Although the number of benchmark sites is set to increase, the published findings are currently not representative of the Netherlands as a whole. Our conclusions should therefore be viewed as observations and trends. This study was conducted by Mobilemetrics.nl, a collaboration between aFrogleap, Netprofiler and RapidSugar.

A benchmark research of 20 Dutch websites indicates that the iPad currently is the most widely used mobile device to visit websites. The sample shows that 3.6% of total internet visits in the month of March 2011 is originating from mobile devices. The devices included mobile phones, tablets and mobile music players.

The Apple iPad is the most used mobile device in the last 3 months followed by the iPhone. More than one third of all mobile internet visits in March 2011 was originating from the iPad. The top 5 mobile operating systems currently is: iPad (34.4%), iPhone (33.9%), Android (16.9%), Blackberry OS (5.9%) and iPod (4.7 %). SymbianOs and Windows Mobile are currently on the sixth and seventh place. Remarkably, the use of the iPad was even slightly higher in January 2011 than in February and March.

In a similar analysis of the same 20 sites in October 2010, the percentage of mobile usage was at 2.0%. That’s an increase of 80% of mobile visits within a half year. The mobile visits as part of the total visits varies between 1.6% and 5.9% for these 20 sites. The sites together generate around 5 million visitors a month and are divided into various sectors such as news, entertainment, travel, training and e-commerce. This study specifically looked at the visit to the normal websites. Of course these figures will differ from visits to special mobile sites and mobile apps. This observation indicates that mobile devices are increasingly used for surfing and that the majority of these mobile devices are Apple products.

Mobilemetrics.nl bases its findings on information received from the 20 site owners and brands currently sharing their data with us. Our data partners represent 5 million site visitors a month. Although this number is set to increase, the published findings are currently not representative of the Netherlands as a whole. Our conclusions should therefore be viewed as observations and trends.

A benchmark research of 20 Dutch websites shows that 2.0% of all internet traffic takes place through mobile devices. These devices can be divided in mobile phones, mobile music players and tablets. The research period was September and October 2010. The 2.0 % is a growth of 285% compared to a similar research that was done in the fourth quarter of 2009. The mobile visits Q4 of 2009 were 0.7 % of the total visits. This trend is expected to continue. Forrester announces that 47% of all the Dutch people will adapt mobile internet by 2014.

The iPhone is still by far the most common mobile device to visit websites in The Netherlands. More than a third of the mobile internet visits (38,9%) is done with a iPhone.  The Apple iPpad, which was introduced at the of July 2010 in the Netherlands, is responsible for 23% of all mobile internet traffic. This is a good second place. Other operating systems that frequently are used Android, Blackberry and SymbianOs. Windows Mobile and SymbianOS lose market share. The top 6 devices are:

The share of mobile users in the total internet visits varies heavily per website. For the 20 websites in this benchmark the mobile visit share is between 0.8% and 4.1%. In this research Apple’s total market share was 68,9%.

Since the iPad introduction in the Netherlands at the 23th of July the current sales figures are already comparable to that of the iPhone and the adoption is said to be better than that of the DVD. The iPad is the new addition to the living room and yet another device that will visit your business website or open your marketing email.

What kind of impact does this device have on your business? How to react properly to the adoption of this new device? And is the iPad already taking a significant portion of the website traffic? These questions are nowadays buzzing in the heads of digital marketers.

Mobile metrics was involved in the launch of a new mobile website for one of the biggest retailers in the Netherlands. This retailer has stores all over Holland and attracts the average Joe consumer. With the iPad just launched in the Netherlands the results of the iPad traffic were above all expectations. After approximately three weeks ‘air time’ the following statistics were retrieved:

As presented in the table above the iPad users are responsible for 12,5% of all visits to this mobile website and the iPad users view the most pages per visit (avg. 4.11). (Note that all Apple products share 55.8% of all visits). This means, also for iPad critics, there is definitely significant traffic originating from the iPad and cannot be ignored when building a new website.

What action do you have to take? The easy option is to display the normal website on the iPad, but if your website uses Flash elements and/or you care about user experience, this is not the way. The adobe flash website is for example totally useless on the iPad. (Screenshot 1)

The other option is to display the mobile version of the website on the iPad. These are always viewable on the iPad. But the iPad screen dimensions will generate white spaces and small text, which will not be optimal for user experience. The main Gmail page www.gmail.com is a ‘good’ bad example for this practice. (Screenshot 2)

Businesses in the US are already releasing their “iPad ready” websites like cnn.com, nytimes.com and vimeo.com perfectly designed for portrait and landscape views and optimal space usage, and they are right! Every business site should mature to a multi- platform/device website.

With this kind of mass adoption it can be concluded that

A new benchmark study of ten Dutch e-commerce websites shows that nearly 0.9% of all internet traffic takes place through mobile devices. This is slightly higher than the 0.7% calculated in a recent benchmark survey conducted of 20 websites. Compared with normal visits (visits by computers and laptops for example), visits from mobile devices are significantly shorter, have fewer page views and transactions are done only occasionally. The mobile activity at e-commerce websites is very limited. The following differences surfaced when comparing “normal visits” with requests made through a mobile phone:

• Visit time of mobile visits is 40% lower
• Number of page views of mobile visits is 47% lower
• Conversion of mobile visits is 83% lower

To complete a transaction on a e-commerce website, it’s usually required to enter a significant amount of personal and financial information. It is therefore understandable that the conversion rate from mobile devices is significantly lower. Entering data using a mobile device is simply not as easy as when using a laptop or pc.

The benchmark study shows that the iPhone (58%) and iPod (12%) are the most used mobile devices to visit e-commerce websites. Other operating systems that are frequently used include Windows, SymbianOS, Blackberry and Android.

In the benchmark study Netprofiler has analyzed the Google Analytics statistics from 10 Dutch e-commerce websites. Only visits with devices where the screen width was less than 700 pixels are included in the research. These are almost certainly mobile devices. The visits per operating system are based on the first two months of 2010.

A benchmark research of 20 Dutch websites concludes that 0.7% of all internet traffic takes place via mobile devices. The devices include mobile phones, mobile music and media portable games. The Apple iPhone is currently by far the most common device to visit websites. More than half of the mobile internet hits (53%) in the benchmark study is done with an Apple iPhone. Other operating systems that frequently occur include: Windows, SymbianOS, iPod, Blackberry and Android. This top 6 is the same on almost all sites in the research. The share of mobile users in the total internet visits varies heavily per website. In the benchmark it is between 0.3% and 1.2%.

After the introduction of the iPad it has become clear. The iPhone and smartphone hype is over. Why I am stating something so obvious? While we are awaiting the much hyped tablet, the iPhone is ready for it’s fourth meaningful operating system update. Competing operating systems like Android are growing rapidly with hardware partners like HTC and Samsung. The entire smartphone industry is evolving from a niche market to a 180 million units per year business (Gartner).