The world has turned into a global village, thanks to internet. Technology has advanced so much that communication has become a piece of cake. There was a time when people went overseas, their family back home had to wait for months to get their news. With telephone, things became easier but high costs restricted regular conversation. Internet made international calls much cheaper. Even in the last decade, when Skype, Yahoo messenger or GTalk, etc. enabled us to chat or voice chat for free, we had to be tethered to the PC or laptop. But ever since smartphones came into the picture, our lives changed. Communication was never so easy and simple.
So, though people had been addicted to internet for past 20 years, more and more people are switching to smartphones for mobile Internet. At present that is 2017, the growth rate stands at 6% but by 2021, market will be so much saturated and a large share of internet users already switched to smartphones, this growth rate will be close to 1.4%.
Ease of communication is obviously a factor but there are two most important factors of the mobile internet usage growth. Firstly the mobile devices which are the miniature entertainment system and secondly addiction of social web- these two factors have evolved to shape an entire industry of mobile phone internet. It is true that Facebook was popular even before smartphones came into being but the number of subscribers and members have surely increased after that. Uploading a picture or giving a status update in Facebook or Instagram is lot more easy when you are accessing internet through mobile phones. Click a picture in your camera phone and upload it with 4G, 3G or wireless data system. Even thought of doing the procedure on laptop preceded by transferring the images on the system sounds so tedious. This comfort of staying connected boosted the mobile internet usage growth in US.
According to a study, about 80% of the total internet using American population accesses internet on phone. And this number will increase in coming years. At present about 40 million Americans access internet through their mobile phones. By 2020, the count will rise to 50 million people. This crowd will add more old as well as young subscribers into the list. Even now people are using both the means to access internet that are wireless router and mobile phone but by 2020 the trend may shift to strictly mobile internet users only. So, using multiple devices to access internet may decline in coming years.
These mobile phones give enough reason to be restricted to them for using mobiles. Clicking pictures and sending it right away, voice call whenever and wherever you want, mobile entertainment any time any place- what else can a metrosexual modern man can ask for. To keep himself updated even when on the go – this was the sole aim of introducing mobile internet and it has been attained. And there is no second doubt about it.