With growth of smartphones and tablets, consumers are using mobile devices as their default gateway to Internet, instead of PCs, according a new report from the International Data Corporation (IDC).
According to IDC’s Worldwide New Media Market Model report, the US leads that trend, with Western Europe and Japan only about two years behind.
The report expects that the number of users accessing Internet through PCs is expected to shrink from 240 million in 2012 to 225 million in 2016 while during that forecast period the number of mobile users will increase from 174 million to 265 million.
The number of users accessing Internet over their mobile devices, will more than the number of users using it through their PCs by 2015.
IDC Media & Entertainment programme vice president Karsten Weide said in the consumer world, mobile Internet usage is already beginning to displace PC usage, and the US is leading this trend.
"There has been much talk about how the future of the Internet will be mobile first and PC second. In the United States, that future is now," Weide said.
IDC analysts expect that the share of users accessing social networks such as Facebook on their PCs will decline from 66% in 2012 to 52% in 2016 while worldwide mobile advertising is expected to grow five times from $6bn in 2011 to $28.8bn in 2016.
Worldwide business-to-consumer (B2C) m-commerce spending is also expected to grow six times between 2011 and 2016, reaching $223bn during the period.
