To reverse the decline in mobile Safari market share, Adobe’s latest Adobe Digital Index welcomes a larger screen size for the next generation iPhone.
The 2014 Mobile Benchmark Report found phones with larger screens drive more online traffic than ever before, and Apple’s mobile Safari browser share on small screens is expected to decline.
Web browsing on larger (four-inch or more) phones grew by 132 per cent year-over-year, though on smaller (four-inch or less) devices it decreased by 11 per cent.
Adobe Marketing Cloud vice president of strategy and business development, John Mellor, said the results reflect a “constantly evolving” mobile landscape.
“Mobile needs to be front and centre of any digital marketing strategy to keep up with technology innovations and consumer expectations,” he said.
The different screen sizes meansthe market share for Chrome Mobile increased by 5.7 to 34.6 per cent, while mobile Safari’s fell by 2.6 per cent to 59.1 per cent.
iPhone and iPad devices still generate the most mobile traffic with 54 and 80 per cent market share respectively, followed by Samsung at 24 and 7 per cent on its smartphones and tablets respectively.
Shift to Wi-Fi
Despite the proliferation of these network-connected mobile devices, the report stated more users prefer to access the Internet via Wi-Fi.
Over 50 per cent of smartphone browsing and 93 percent of tablet browsing is currently attributed to Wi-Fi than mobile networks.
Mellor said these types of user trends are causing challenges for brands when attempting to reach mobile consumers.
“2015 will be a game changing year for marketers who must deliver highly personalized content across screens,” he said.
One notable trend highlighted in the report is how users are sharing more digital magazine content via text messaging than before.
Read more: Samsung Australia launches health and medical equipment division
Apple’s iMessage app saw the strongest increase with 259 per cent year-on-year, though Facebook suffered a setback with a decrease of 42.6 per cent.
Other key highlights in the report included Pinterest as the most mobile social network, the highest revenue per visit coming from Tumblr mobile referral visits, and iBeacon use becoming mainstream.
Patrick Budmar covers consumer and enterprise technology breaking news for IDG Communications. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_budmar.
