Mobile Marketing Statistics and Tips for 2018 (Infographic)

Times change, faster today than yesterday, and fastest of all online. Marketing strategies that worked five years ago may well be outdated now, and everything points to a mobile future for digital marketing. This infographic from Filmora brings together the key mobile marketing statistics and tips.

Smartphones Are Taking Over Our Lives

Your phone is everywhere: in your pocket or bag when you walk, in the center console when you drive, and on the nightstand when you sleep. The shower is about the only place we’re willing to leave it behind, and even that’s not a given. Smartphones have become so essential that it’s hard to remember how we managed without them. They’ve even changed how we search, with the rise of voice search on mobile.

The numbers back this up. According to the infographic, close to 66% of the world’s population now owns a smartphone, nearly 10 percentage points more than in 2013, and that share is projected to pass 67% in 2019.

As smartphones have taken off, bulkier, less convenient desktop computers have lost ground. Smartphones and tablets now generate 57% of internet traffic, versus 43% for desktops, which not long ago were the only way to get online. That’s remarkable growth, and it’s exactly why Google has started rolling out mobile-first indexing, which uses the mobile version of a site for indexing and ranking.

Smartphone Usage by Age

Not everyone is equally hooked, though. Younger people are by far the heaviest users, spending more than three hours a day glued to their phone screens. The older the age group, the less time people spend on their phones each day:

• Ages 16-24: 3 hours 16 minutes
• Ages 25-34: 2 hours 41 minutes
• Ages 35-44: 1 hour 49 minutes
• Ages 45-54: 1 hour 4 minutes
• Ages 55-64: 35 minutes

Why Your Website Has to Work on Mobile

Given these numbers, the conclusion is obvious: websites need to be built for the mobile experience. In fact, 57% of internet users say they wouldn’t recommend a business whose website is poorly designed or doesn’t work well on a smartphone. To succeed online in 2018, you need to account for these shifts and make mobile marketing a priority. Speed counts too: Google’s mobile Speed Update makes page speed a ranking factor for mobile searches starting in July 2018. Your move!

Source: Filmora.

Where Things Stand in 2026

Google has since finished its switch to mobile-first indexing: since July 2024, it crawls and indexes websites with its smartphone crawler, so a site that doesn’t work on mobile simply isn’t seen the way users see it. Our website speed optimization checklist covers the Core Web Vitals that matter on mobile today. A mobile-friendly site is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s the baseline.

Need a site that works on every screen? Référenceur, a French-speaking digital marketing agency from Belgium and Luxembourg, designs mobile-friendly websites for U.S. businesses, working remotely through video calls, shared screens, and monthly reporting. Get a free assessment of your site.