Research shows massive surge in iPad travel browsing

February 7, 2012 By 5 Comments

Mobile web browsing on travel sites has increased by almost three quarters in the past six months and now accounts for an average of 17.4% of traffic.

Research entitled the ‘Beginning of the End of the PC Era?’ from web design and digital specialist Nucleus reveals the growth in traffic from mobile devices in January 2012 compared with August 2011 and shows luxury sites have the highest mobile penetration.

The studied carried out on 10 UK and international travel websites reveals some have witnessed a doubling in mobile web browsing over the six months with the top site generating 24.2% of its traffic from tablets and smartphones.

Apple devices dominate mobile browsing taking an average share of 85.6% of all mobile browsing devices and the figure increases for luxury brand websites.

Meanwhile, browsing using an Android device has dropped in the six months although there is evidence to show those devices are being used on mass market travel sites but iOS devices still do better.

Only the iPad has increased its share of the mobile web browsing market – up 12% in the past six months.

According to Nucleus the research demonstrates the need for brands to offer a good browsing experience for mobile phones and tablets and highlights the importance of optimising for touch, building in HTML 5 and using higher definition images.

Chief executive Peter Matthews says the research signals a clear move away from browsing on PCs almost exclusively just over a year ago.

He also points to forecast growth rates for the sale of tablet devices from 72 million now to 383m by 2017 according to an NPD study last month and the slowing rate of PC sales.

NB: Image via Shutterstock

Related posts:

  1. Research shows possible relaxation of worries over data roaming when travelling
  2. Why the iPad and mobile are changing how consumers search for travel
  3. One in three predicted to research travel on a mobile
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Linda Fox About Linda Fox

Linda Fox is a reporter for Tnooz. For the past six years she has worked as a freelance journalist across a range of B2B titles including Travolution, ABTA Magazine, Travelmole and the Business Travel Magazine.

In this time she has also undertaken corporate projects for a number of high profile travel technology, travel management and research companies.

Prior to her freelance career she covered hotels and technology news for Travel Trade Gazette for seven years. Linda joined TTG from Caterer & Hotelkeeper where she worked on the features desk for more than five years.

Comments

  1. Peter Matthews says:
    February 7, 2012 at 7:21 am

    You can download this report at http://www.nucleus.co.uk/thoughts.aspx

    Reply
  2. Jim Kovarik says:
    February 7, 2012 at 7:31 am

    yep – we’ve certainly seen this on cost2drive.com. January visits from iPads were up 63% from Dec, growing faster than Android and iPhone. Obviously helped by a strong holiday season for the iPad.

    Reply
  3. Tanielle Lobo says:
    February 9, 2012 at 6:15 am

    Our website traffic from Ipad browsers has risen by 65.09% But overall Iphone, Android & Blackberry are still in the lead.

    Reply
  4. Marie Leggo says:
    February 26, 2013 at 4:26 am

    Our traffic is dominated by ipad (59%) and iphone (27%) next in line is Samsung GT-I9100 Galaxy S II (1.41%) iOS devices are the clear winner here.

    Android devices will start winning some of the market from Apple but one thing is for sure mobile devices will continue to grow and be the hardware of choice.

    Reply

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