Mobile Fast Stats

Check out these newly released stats, published by the CTIA trade group, concerning mobile usage. Forrester Research recently predicted that over 50% of web users would browse on mobile devices by 2014, which looks very likely in light of these new stats. Here are some highlights that pertain to hotel owners:

• “Instead of talking, subscribers are texting and browsing. Data traffic was 226.5 billion megabytes, up 110 percent…from 2009.

• The number of smartphones in active use jumped 57 percent, to 78.2 million.

• Wireless tablets, laptops and modems grew 14.2 percent, to 13.6 million.

• Wireless companies had 302.9 million subscribers last year, up 6 percent from…2009. That equates to a wireless-penetration rate of 96 percent, up from 91.2 percent the year before.”

Interestingly, data shows that wireless subscribers used fewer minutes last year than the year before, while data usage went up—that is, people are talking less and browsing more. They’re finding more answers to their questions on websites and apps.

What can an hotelier learn from this? We’ve been hammering this theme hard on the blog the past few days, but it’s vital—ignore an optimized environment for mobile customers and you lose a substantial portion of the market. This is why buuteeq has striven to provide our customers with not only a beautiful home on the web, but one that we optimize for mobile devices.

Don’t quite know what “optimized for mobile” means? Check out a post I wrote yesterday explaining the process with some nice comparison screenshots.

Read the Seattle Times article here.