Report: Nearly 60 percent of searches now from mobile devices

Hitwise examined hundreds of millions of queries across 11 key categories.

Chat with SearchBot

According to official Google statements, more than 50 percent of search queries globally now come from mobile devices. But we don’t know whether the number is 51 percent or 60 percent, or if it varies significantly by country.

A recent report from Hitwise (registration required) argues that in the US mobile search is roughly 58 percent of overall search query volume. That’s based on an average of 11 key categories and associated queries analyzed by Hitwise in its “Mobile Search: Topics and Themes” report. The company “examined hundreds of millions of online search queries” across PCs, smartphones and tablets between April 10 and May 7, 2016.

Share of online searches initiated on a mobile device, by industry

Hitwise mobile search %

Source: Hitwise

The category with the highest percentage of mobile search volume was “Food & Beverage,” with 72 percent. The category with the lowest volume was banking, with 39 percent (or 61 percent on the desktop).

Another interesting finding in the report is that mobile queries are slightly longer than PC search queries. For example, in Food & Beverage, average PC query strings were 13.8 characters, mobile queries were at 15.5 characters (just over two words). Unfortunately, the report doesn’t provide additional insight or detail by category on query length.

Hitwise mobile query length


Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.


About the author

Greg Sterling
Contributor
Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land, a member of the programming team for SMX events and the VP, Market Insights at Uberall.

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.