With the emergence of mobile devices with online capability, the amount of people browsing the internet on their phones has steadily grown as a portion of the overall market.

As mobile devices continue to cement their presence in our everyday lives, there is a growing trend amongst consumers to carry out many of their essential actions both online and on the go.

Chitika, a data analytics company in the business of online advertising, analyzed a large sample of web traffic in an attempt to identify behavioral trends and the distribution of mobile browsing as a share of overall web use.

Over the past month, Chitika Insights compared weekly series of data to determine different behaviors and trends in mobile browsing.

Before we proceed, let us look at the methodology here:

Study Methodology

This study was done using data from the Chitika network. Chitika analyzed millions of impressions from its ad network looking into the user agent string and correlating with hourly browsing patterns.

By analyzing the user agent and the time, this study and insights were extracted. Read more about the methodology here.

Key Insights

From our sample, which included hundreds of millions of impressions, Mobile traffic represented over 8% of all web traffic. However, some interesting insights were discovered when the traffic was broken down by day of the week, specifically between weekday and weekend mobile internet use.

During the week, Mobile traffic averages 7.85% of total web use but grows to 8.9% of total web use (a growth of 13.5%) on the weekend.

Ultimately, this makes sense – on the weekend, it would seem that consumers are more likely to spend time away from their computers, making a mobile device the sole available source of Internet access.

“On the weekend, it would seem that consumers are more likely to spend time away from their computers, making a mobile device the sole available source” – Chitika Insights

As the need for on-the-go information grows, it lends itself to the notion of peak mobile web use on the weekends.

When looking at weekday hourly usage, further interesting patterns emerge. At the start of the traditional workday, mobile’s share of overall traffic is cut by a third (9.5% to 6%), and remains at this reduced level until approximately 6pm.

As people return home, we see mobile use begin to increase at a relatively constant rate until 1 or 2 AM, where it begins to decline.

“As people return home, we see mobile use begin to increase at a relatively constant rate until 1 or 2 AM, where it begins to decline” – Chitika Insights

After its nighttime lull, mobile then trends slightly upwards at around 7 to 8am as people begin to prepare for the day, before dipping back down again to repeat the daily cycle.

Given a recent article by Chitika Insights depicting that Mobile users are 45% more likely to engage in local search, these behaviors present a curious dilemma for advertisers and local businesses: Most businesses are open from 9-5 during the week, the same time when mobile traffics dips to its lowest point.

Not only does this have implications for targeted advertisers, but it also can have a serious impact on local businesses who must carefully balance their advertising budgets.

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