Stefan Mileschin

The number of people accessing the internet through mobile devices will exceed PC users by 2015 in the US, with western Europe not far behind.

According to analysts at IDC the number of people using the internet via a PC in the US will shrink from 240 million in 2012 to 225 million in 2016. Meanwhile mobile users will increase from 174 million to 265 million over the same period.

This shift is to be followed in other parts of the world, with western Europe following suit a couple of years later.

As smartphones become increasingly commonplace it is likely that the situation will be the same if not moreso in emerging markets as the transition is made from feature phones, while PC sales stay lower.

IDC says that this shift will coincide with mobile advertising across the world rising from $6 billion in 2011 to $28 billion in 2016.

However, this shift is likely to have an impact on overall advertising revenues. Many companies have struggled to generate cash from online advertising despite generating large revenues from PC use.

Facebook is one of the companies which has struggled to really effectively monetise mobile advertising, as reflected in its dropping share value.

It is expected that the 66 percent of Facebook users visiting the site through a PC in 2012 will drop to 52 percent in 2016.

http://news.techeye.net/internet/mob...eed-pc-by-2015