Smartphones and Tablet Searches up 26% in 2012

This research was done by Matt McGee, the Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land.  Matt works with some of the largest web companies as a consultant and offers training on SEO, social media and local search.

Search continues to shift away from the desktop toward mobile devices.

That’s one of the conclusions of the just-released Neustar Localeze/15miles/comScore Local Search Study, which is now in its sixth year. This year’s study involves a sample of more than 3,000 U.S. adults that say they use the Internet to search for local businesses. Results aren’t available online yet, but we’ll add a link here when they are.

The total number of U.S. searchers using mobile phones grew 26 percent between March 2012 and December 2012, from 90.1 million to 113.1 million searchers. Search on tablets was up 19 percent between April 2012 and December 2012. (Tablets are commonly counted as “mobile,” though I’d argue that’s often a misnomer; think of the consumer sitting in front of a TV using his/her iPad — not very mobile.)

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