Tablet Traffic Faster than Smartphone Traffic: Study

A study reveals that tablet devices will generate more Web traffic than smartphones by early 2013 and that consumers find browsing websites on tablets nearly as engaging as on personal computers (PCs).

Adobe Systems (NASDAQ:ADBE) today, May 15, announced findings from its Adobe Digital Index report examining how global website traffic and engagement differ when the visitor is on a tablet, smartphone or a PC.

Meanwhile, digital market researcher comScore says tablets quickly rose in popularity in 2011, taking less than two years to account for nearly 40 million tablets in use among U.S. mobile users and outpacing smartphones which took 7 years to reach the same. It says by the end of 2011, nearly 15 percent of U.S. mobile users also had tablets – a trend seen across other markets as well. (Read: Are Tablets Really Selling Like Hot Cakes?)

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The Adobe study results indicate that tablets have become a channel very distinct from smartphones. While apps have proven a highly valuable and important component of a mobile strategy, companies would be well served to invest in optimizing mobile Web pages for the growing and affluent tablet demographic. Key report findings include:

• The share of website visits from tablets grew approximately 10 times faster than the rate for smartphones in the first two years after market introduction and grew more than 300 percent in the last year. This rapid growth is driven by both higher rates of tablet shipments and a disproportionately higher number of website visits per tablet than smartphones.
• Tablets’ share of website traffic will exceed smartphone traffic by early 2013 and reach 10 percent of total website traffic in 2014.
• Although consumers consider the tablet website experience to be nearly as engaging as that of PCs, they use PCs to visit websites three times as frequently as tablets.

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“As businesses rethink their digital experiences to include mobile strategies, tablets are emerging as the consumer device of choice,” said Brad Rencher, senior vice president and general manager, Digital Marketing Business, Adobe. “Digital CMOs are wise to take a mobile first approach to optimize their digital content and marketing initiatives with a focus on the tablet experience because the consumer demands it.”

According to Adobe, this study analyzed 23 billion visits to the websites of 325 companies from the North America, Western Europe (Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) and Asia (China, India, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand).