10 Things You Might Not Have Known about Digital Traffic Worldwide

Our visibility into this detailed activity on web entities has provided us with a treasure trove of new data that is helping us understand the complexities of the increasingly fragmented digital media environment. We have spent the past several weeks poring over the new data, and we’d like to share with you several of the interesting new findings based on our analysis of 15 different countries* reported in Device Essentials:

1. Mobile phones are second only to computers in driving digital traffic: While we saw computers accounting for at least 93 percent of digital traffic across the 15 markets studied, we also saw mobile contributing the most amount of traffic following computers. The U.S. has the highest share of non-computer device traffic at 6.2 percent, with mobile phones making up about two-thirds of that traffic (4.2 percent overall). Singapore and the U.K., which also have considerably high shares of non-computer device traffic at 5.9 percent and 5.3 percent, respectively, also show mobile comprising the majority of that traffic.
2. Apple leads the way for non-computer device traffic across markets: In the U.S. alone, the iOS platform accounted for 53.1 percent of non-computer device traffic, led by traffic coming from the iPhone (23.5 percent), iPad (21.8 percent) and iPod Touch (7.8 percent). In all the other markets reported in this analysis, with the exception of Argentina and India, iOS comprised more than half of non-computer device traffic, topping out at 83.0 percent in Australia, Canada, and Singapore.
3. Android outpaces iPhone in U.S. traffic despite overall lead for iOS: While the iOS platform accounts for the majority of overall traffic flowing through non-computer devices in the U.S., Android phones account for 35.6 percent of non-computer traffic vs. 23.5 percent from iPhones.
4. Mobile traffic is not only driven by smartphones: Among the markets analyzed, India stands out as one of the markets where mobile phones account for a significant amount of non-computer device traffic (94.8 percent), but this activity is driven by primarily by feature phones (71.9 percent of non-computer device traffic) as opposed to smartphones (22.9 percent share). Other markets where feature phones drive significant non-computer device traffic include Argentina (27.5 percent) and Brazil (17.3 percent).
5. Tablets account for a significant share of non-computer traffic: Next to mobile phones, tablets contribute a significant share of total non-computer device traffic. Two-thirds of the markets in this analysis saw tablets driving more than 20 percent of all non-computer device traffic. The Netherlands (35.6 percent), Canada (35.2 percent), and Brazil (33.4 percent), led the way, with tablets accounting for more than a third of non-computer traffic.
6. Apple dominates the tablet market around the world: In all of the markets in this analysis, the share of total digital traffic coming from tablets was driven largely by iPads. In 13 of the 15 markets, Apple captured at least 95 percent of the tablet market, while Android tablets accounted for most of the remaining tablet share.
7. E-readers and gaming consoles barely register any traffic: Device Essentials measures traffic from other web-enabled devices beyond computers, mobile phones, and tablets, such as e-readers and gaming consoles. In all of the markets studied, these other devices contributed less than 1 percent to overall digital traffic, with the highest share of traffic seen in Canada and the U.S. at 0.6 percent.
8. iPod Touches drive one fifth of the traffic of iPhones: Because they’re not mobile phones, iPod Touches can sometimes be overlooked as important drivers of non-computer device traffic. When compared to its sister device, the iPhone, iPod Touches actually drove about one fifth the level of traffic across most markets. In Argentina and Canada, iPods had even greater relative importance, driving approximately half of the traffic of iPhones. At nearly 15 percent of non-computer device traffic, Canada is the only market where the iPod Touch accounts for more than 10 percent of non-computer traffic.
9. WiFi access fuels the U.S. non-computer device landscape: Interestingly, more than half (54.5 percent) of all non-computer traffic in the U.S. comes via WiFi connection. 91.9 percent of U.S. iPad traffic comes via WiFi access, indicating that the majority of iPad surfing is done at home, at the office, or in other WiFi-enabled locations. Similarly, this high percentage may also reflect that many people aren’t paying for additional 3G service for tablets at the moment.
10. Even across devices, WiFi and mobile network activity varies: Even within the same device types, there are differences in the way users are connecting online. In the U.S., 78.3 percent of total digital traffic coming from Android phones occurred over mobile networks, compared to a much lower 52.5 percent on iPhones. A significant 47.5 percent of iPhone traffic came through a WiFi connection, reflecting the importance iOS device users place on being able to easily connect via WiFi.

You can see from these preliminary Device Essentials data that there are many insights about traffic patterns across the digital landscape today that we’re just beginning to uncover, especially on a market-by-market level. As new devices and methods of staying connected online continue to proliferate, it will be interesting to see how these traffic patterns evolve. Stay tuned as we continue to unearth more interesting nuggets of data about the bigger picture surrounding digital traffic with Device Essentials.

*The markets covered in this study were Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, India, Japan, Malaysia, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. The Netherlands and Malaysia were not included in the press release and added to this data set at a later point.