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March 06, 2017

Comments

Wayne Borean


The shift is interesting. Numbers like this must have Microsoft terrified.

Winter

I assume that with "using the internet" you mean "browsing the WWW", including some web replacements apps like Facebook and twitter.

Or are there people whose internet use is limited to Whatsap or email?

Tester

This is way too broad.

Of course I use "the internet" on my phone, but it's restricted to email, messaging and quick lookups because it's simply not comfortable on such a small screen to read lengthy articles (like the website I am currently posting on.)

I still to most on my PC but since I am grouped in 'both' it gives a very warped image of what is being done. This statistic would be worth something if it broke down "internet usage" into different kinds of activities - and into different countries.

And another thing that's entirely missing here is how much time people are spending in the internet on which device.


And why should Microsoft be scared? The people who don't use a PC are not even their customers - many may have owned a PC in the past that got upgraded every 6-7 years or so, but they are certainly not a source of profit and never were.

Tomi T Ahonen

Hi Wayne, Winter & Tester

Wayne - Lol yeah should have many muttering under their breaths about (we knew this is how it would play out)

Winter - It is a wide mix. Facebook is the biggest single service used obviously but Skype is a VOIP service, email has its users, etc. Much of it is WWW but not all.

Tester - I don't see why? The internet is changing based on how its users are changing it. I was there to see the birth of commerce on the internet (ruining its 'purity') and before the consumer use of the internet it was the university network and before that Arpanet for miliatry. This happens almost always with computers that the usage changes and the newer users bring broader and more consumer-oriented uses. It doesn't make it any less relevant or real.

Now on YOUR use haha (and mine and those of us on this blog) - most of us are not using the mobile exclusively on a mobile. But Tester, more than HALF of all who access the internet, will never use a PC (and typically won't even know how to use a mouse for example). We are the 'old school' users. Our use will not be 'typical' anymore. The majority doesn't have ACCESS to a PC or tablet. For them there is no choice, they HAVE to do whatever they want to do on the internet, on their mobile - and for some that is a featurephone, and for some even a T9 based WAP phone.

I believe the PC vs mobile usage will shift so that increasingly the PC becomes the 'production' platform for the internet while mobile is the consumption platform. Professionals (haha and semi-pro bloggers) will typically use a 'real' PC type of platform including tablets, but almost all actual 'users' of the internet ie consumers, will only consume via a mobile.

Wayne (2nd comment) - totally agree, especially in the last part, its not a monolith anymore (if it ever was) and regional differences in internet use are considerable.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

paul

Nokia Flagship Smartphone With Snapdragon 835 SoC to Launch in June: Report

http://gadgets.ndtv.com/mobiles/news/nokia-flagship-smartphone-with-snapdragon-835-soc-to-launch-in-june-report-1667415

Abdul Muis

@Tomi

I'm trying to understand this, but it's really hard to imagine 200 million PC user use an internet on PC, but not on phone. I think if someone is savvy enough to use internet on PC, he/she will be able to use internet on phone in one form or the other.

Perhaps is the definition of the internet in the survey that were mis-interpreted? For example, A person might only read e-mail on PC, chatting on PC (perhaps with iRC), doing facebook on PC, but might be use the internet on the phone to play game (that show ads), or listening to internet radio (on wifi).

Tester

@Abdul:

One of those 200 million users is my brother. He only owns a dumbphone with a cheap voice/SMS-only contract and logically doesn't use mobile for internet at all.

He doesn't own a smartphone because he believes he doesn't need it.

In any case, I can only restate that this statistic is missing some key pieces to draw any conclusions from it, because I also see some very limited internet use in people mainly using a smartphone for internet access that vastly differs from what I am doing, for example.

E.Casais

@Tester, @WayneBrady

Ditto. Same situation, older generation, PCs as unique entry point to the Internet, and feature phones for mobile communications.

But in truth: getting granular data about access profiles is hard.

Tomi T Ahonen

Hi everybody

Hey Abdul, great question and thanks for good answers to the readers..

It is a SHIFT. So in year 1996 there was no way to get to the internet on a mobile phone (before the original Nokia Communicator). At that point internet access was 100% from personal computers. Since then it is a shift. We passed the half-point in year 2009 if you remember (many of you are regular readers and have been tracking this with me).

Today the majority of access is mobile, about 55% is only mobile, about 40% is mixed PC and mobile, and about 5% is only-PC. So the proportion of only-PC has kept shrinking. It is now mathematically at that 'approx 200 million' level which mostly is older users in the rich world, who have had a PC to access the internet for a decade or more, and simply never got around to bothering to do the pocket internet thing...

That number keeps shrinking obviously. A second slice to it, is the occasional internet cafe user - who doesn't own an internet-capable phone (or can't afford its data connection) or who doesn't KNOW how to use the internet on the phone but uses the familiar thing at the internet cafe - imagine an illiterate labor worker in a foreign country, who calls home using Skype from the internet cafe. His friend or relative taught how to get onto Skype at the internet cafe. This type of user is not technically capable to do that on his own phone even if that phone happened to have technically the capability haha..

Tomi Ahonen :-)

ch

@tester

Why Microsoft needs to be scared? Samsung Dex. If you only use a PC to browse, play music and use office lightly than the Dex is good enough.

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