Mobile news consumption is picking up very fast
The changes are a revolution: Almost one in three visits to Norwegian media products are now from mobile platforms.
For two years I have been recording how users choose the different digital platforms of Norway’s biggest newspaper: Aftenposten.
The dramatic changes over the last 24 months are indeed a revolution.
People are moving from PCs to mobile platforms at increasing speed. It is only a matter of time before smartphones and tablets will outperform the PC as the major platform for media consumption in Norway.
With 1,3 million unique visitors to its web site every week in a country of 4,5 million there is no reason to believe that the numbers from Aftenposten are not representative for the media market in Norway as a whole.
So let us compare which platforms people used to consume the news from Aftenposten in January 2012 with the same month two years ago.
PC versus mobile platforms
Some conclusions
- Visits from mobile platforms have increased from 3,7 % of the total in January 2010 to 30,5 % in January 2012 (23,9 % mobile phones, 6,6 % iPad).
- Two years ago there were 26 times as many visits from PCs as from mobile phones. Last month there were only 2,3 times as many visits from PCs as from mobile phones and tablets.
- So far there are no signs that the new traffic from mobile phones and tablets have cannibalized the traffic from PCs. Instead the mobile visits are coming on top of the visits already from PCs.
- iPad is picking up quickly – and made a jump during the Christmas holiday. Almost seven per cent of the total visits to Aftenposten’s products now come from the iPad.
Android picking up market shares quickly
There are also interesting developments in what type of mobile phones people use to access the news site:
- Apple’s IOS has stayed the biggest mobile operating system ever since this statistics started two years ago. But in January 2010 IOS was barely bigger than Nokia’s Symbian operating system.
- Since then Symbian have almost disappeared completely and instead Android phones are starting to pick up market shares at increasing speed.
- Last month IOS was 53,6 % of the mobile visits, while 34,5 % used Android phones. The gap between the two is decreasing every month.
- Especially the Android-based Samsung Galaxy gt-i9100 seems to gain popularity quickly in the Norwegian market. From December 2011 to January 2012 the number of visits from iPhones actually decreased by 3,7 per cent, while the number of visits from Samsung Galaxy phones increased with 15,1 %. No wonder which phone was under the Christmas trees!
