More Twitter users chose to tweet from a mobile device rather than a PC in 2012, study says

Twitter users in the US and Europe are increasingly opting to use mobile devices rather than their PCs when using the social network. In fact, the proportion of the former group eclipsed the latter last year: just under two thirds used a PC while almost three quarters used a mobile device.

The latest figures come from Strategy Analytics, which conducted a study surveying more than 6,500 people in the US and Europe between March 2012 and October 2012. The results are as follows:

• The proportion of people who used a desktop or notebook computer for tweeting fell from 77 percent to 64 percent.
• The proportion who used a mobile phone for tweeting rose from 53 percent to 64 percent.
• The proportion of people who used a tablet rose from 9 percent to 18 percent.
• the proportion of Twitter users using a mobile device (either tablet or phone) rose from 56 percent to 71 percent.

In other words, mobile devices last year became more popular for tweeting compared to PCs, but neither phones nor tablets were more popular by themselves. Given the news out of IDC this week regarding PC shipments seeing the steepest decline to date, this trend may be accelerating.

In fact, given that this study was conducted in 2012, we wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter usage in the US and Europe on phones had already surpassed PCs. As a social network, Twitter is very simple and requires very little overhead; thus, the overall trend of the move to mobile devices is evident more on the microblogging service than on almost any other site.

Twitter is naturally aware of how its users are going mobile and has been offering a steady stream of updates for its apps and mobile site over the last few months.

See also – Twitter improves search with ‘Top Tweet’ emphasis in apps, removes video services on iOS and Twitter upgrades its mobile search experience by building a hybrid stream of tweets, users, and photos

Top Image credit: Alberto Paroni