320% rise in number of youths accessing entertainment, lifestyle website via tablet
Between January 2012 and June 2013 w00t! Media analyzed over two billion visits to youth and young adult entertainment and lifestyle websites visited by 16 – 34 year olds to see which devices were being used to access content.
The results reveal the important role tablets and smartphones play in the digital lives of today’s youth.
Tablets were found to account for 12% of visits to young adult entertainment and lifestyle websites during the first half of 2013, a rise of 320% on the number tracked in 2012, far more than the 8.7% for all web pages viewed in the UK across all ages. By the close of this year, w00t! Media estimates that 15% of all visits to youth and young adults entertainment and lifestyle websites will come from tablets.
The iPad is, by far and away, the most popular device being used, accounting for 91% of tablet visits to the entertainment and lifestyle sites tracked, followed by the Samsung Galaxy Tab (2.9%), Amazon’s Kindle (2.8%) and Google’s Nexus (1.8%).
When looking at smartphones use, 19% of visits to these sites came from such a device in the first half of this year, up 137% on 2012. Again, Apple devices dominated with 70% of smartphone visits in the first half of 2013, but this percentage is down on 2012 by six points, all of which all were taken up by Android (up six points to 25%).
According to Dan McDevitt, joint MD of w00t! Media, those targeting Generation Y must look to responsive design in order to cater for differing technology. Referring to a recent Internet Advertising Bureau study that found just 11% of the UK’s 100 biggest advertisers use responsive design, he says, “When targeting youth audiences around entertainment & lifestyle content, adoption levels simply can’t be that low, or all parties run the risk of becoming quickly out-of-date”.
Recent research in the UK by digital commerce solutions provider Venda found that few retailers are currently providing responsive websites. Out of 50 retailers studied just ONE – electrical retailer Currys – hosts a responsive website.
Furthermore, almost a quarter of the retailers still do not have a mobile optimized website including, incredibly, Apple. Half are hosting mobile websites under a different URL structure to their existing website.
