The mobile web user population in the United States will increase by almost 25 percent this year -- as 97.3 million mobile device users access the internet from their device at least monthly, according to the latest market study by eMarketer.
By 2015, more than three in five mobile device users -- and almost half the total U.S. population -- will be using the mobile internet, eMarketer forecasts.
“The rapidly expanding smartphone and mobile internet user populations raise the stakes for marketers and make the mobile web more of an imperative than ever,” said Noah Elkin, eMarketer principal analyst for mobile.
eMarketer’s estimates of mobile internet usage include people of any age who access the internet from a mobile browser or installed application at least once per month.
Most of the growth in mobile internet usage will come from increased smartphone penetration, which will reach 38 percent of mobile users and 28.8 percent of the overall population by the end of this year.
The number of smartphone users is set to increase 49.6 percent this year and continue growing at a steady double-digit pace through 2015, when nearly 150 million U.S. consumers will have such a device.
Mobile internet usage is still heaviest among younger adults, with 43.2 million US consumers ages 18 to 34 logging on to the mobile web this year, eMarketer estimates -- or 44.4 percent of the total.
Usage is on the rise among older adults as well, however. This year, eMarketer estimates 21.5 million 45- to 64-year-olds and 3.7 million seniors 65 and older will use the mobile internet. By 2015, those numbers will both more than double to 45.4 million and 11.3 million, respectively.