New research from Gartner indicates that the mobile Web--as in cell phones and smartphones--will overtake PCs as the most common devices used for Web access sometime during the next three years.
MediaPost reports that it's a more aggressive projection than the one Morgan Stanley issued, which had forecast five years as the time frame.
To put some numbers on the whole thing, Gartner is estimating that the combined installed base of mobile devices (including feature phones and smartphones, but not netbooks or laptops) will exceed 1.82 billion units by 2013, just ahead of the projected 1.78 billion total for desktop and laptop PCs.
The report also cautions that many sites still aren't optimized for the mobile Web, even as cell phone users respond to surveys saying that they expect fewer clicks, not more clicks, on their phones than when using a PC.
MediaPost reports that it's a more aggressive projection than the one Morgan Stanley issued, which had forecast five years as the time frame.
To put some numbers on the whole thing, Gartner is estimating that the combined installed base of mobile devices (including feature phones and smartphones, but not netbooks or laptops) will exceed 1.82 billion units by 2013, just ahead of the projected 1.78 billion total for desktop and laptop PCs.
The report also cautions that many sites still aren't optimized for the mobile Web, even as cell phone users respond to surveys saying that they expect fewer clicks, not more clicks, on their phones than when using a PC.
