Mobile-friendly sites expanding at 1000 percent a year

dotMobi, announced third annual study on mobile Web trends shows that the mobile Web is continuing its explosive global growth and at a faster pace than desktop.

The dotMobi “Mobile Web Progress” now in its third-year, examines websites aimed at mobile users, and there’s been a significant leap in the number of sites catering for mobile users. The 2008 study showed 150,000 mobile-ready websites, while the 2010 study showed approximately 3.01 million sites, representing an incredible two-year growth of more than 2,000%. And that growth level significantly outpaces early desktop growth.

Web analysts Netcraft found that, between 1996 and 1998, the size of the desktop Web grew from 150,000 sites to 2.0 million sites, a growth rate of only 1,333% compared to the mobile Web’s 2,000 percent growth in the equivalent timeframe.

“Many brands and businesses are seeing that mobile is a vital, unique channel and not just a smaller desktop Web. Big brands are now adopting mobile Web strategies, but we still have a long way to go, given the ubiquity of mobile phones compared to computers,” said Trey Harvin, CEO of dotMobi. “A recent Morgan Stanley report noted that the ‘mobile internet is ramping faster than desktop internet did and will be bigger than most think’. Businesses of all sizes need to prepare for the change in how people will access content by embracing the mobile Web.”

“Small business owners must engage their growing mobile audience as large brands have. Tools like Dreamweaver and WordPress enabled this to happen on the desktop Web by making site creation fast, easy and cheap. Developments like jQuery Mobile, DeviceAtlas and goMobi are now making this happen for the mobile Web,” added Harvin.

A sentiment echoed by Brandon Watson Director of Windows Phone 7 at Microsoft who told delegates at Mobile Apps World 2010 yesterday that businesses should “use the fantastic tools available” rather than hiring staff to achieve the same thing.

To better understand how the world’s most popular websites are handling mobile phones, dotMobi looked closely at the top 500,000 websites as determined by Alexa, the Amazon.com intelligence company.

Within the Alexa top 1,000 sites, 40.1% of all sites are mobile-friendly. These sites represent the world’s most popular Web properties, like Google, Facebook and Yahoo.

Beyond the top 1,000, mobile friendliness still holds strong but is not yet as widespread. Of the top 10,000 Alexa sites, 29.7% perform well on mobiles. Once the input data is broadened to include the top 500,000 sites, the total number of mobile-friendly sites drops to 19.3%.

dotMobi’s Director of Engineering, Ronan Cremin, said, “The study demonstrates that apps are shifting to become a part of a broader mobile Web strategy rather than the strategy itself. While some brands build individual apps for multiple platforms like iOS, Android and BlackBerry, businesses are increasingly choosing a mobile Web solution for their content, as many of the Alexa top 1,000 have already done.”

“As more tools come to market and HTML5 support spreads, mobile Web apps will displace most ‘native’ apps. Brands can now build a single mobile Web presence that works across all mobile devices without the limitations, costs and maintenance issues of multiple app platforms. The mobile Web lets you address all of your mobile customers, not just those with iPhones and Android handsets,” Cremin added.

“Companies that have focused on good mobile user experiences and mobile-friendly websites now have strong advantages in competing for visitors, sales, and customer loyalty,” Harvin said, “And these advantages are already positively impacting sales at their desktop websites.”

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