In a few, very few years, smartphones will be the main device for digital consumption, usurping that place which for the moment is still occupied by desktops, laptops and notebooks. This is what Gartner Inc, a company specializing in strategic consultancy, research and analysis in the field of Information Technology, claims in its latest report. In emerging countries, says the research, smartphones, tablets and phablets - touch-screen devices that combine the characteristics of smartphones with those of mini tablets - are already the main means of accessing the world of the web. In Central and South America, Africa and Asia, the first contact with the Internet is mostly through a mobile device.
The latest data released by Alibaba's Alipay, China's largest online payment provider, says the spread of smartphones and tablets in China's most remote regions has led to a real boom in online commercial transactions. In the first ten months of 2014, 60% of online transactions in the Shaanxi region and 58% in Ningxia were made via smartphone, while in the far more advanced Beijing, where the majority of homes have at least one PC and often also more than one, e-commerce from mobile devices stops at 29 percent.
“What our research reveals,” Gartner's Van Baker says, “isn't limited to emerging markets. Even in technologically mature markets, such as the United States or Western Europe, something similar is observed: more and more online transactions are carried out via smartphones, while tablets are used for longer sessions on the Internet and personal computers for the more complex tasks”. In short, according to Gartner, by 2018 half of the world's population will do everything there is to do online from a smartphone or tablet. The consultancy also predicts that smartphone and tablet prices will plummet in the remainder of this decade, until 2020% of all mobile devices on sale will cost less than US$75 in 100.
Even the emergence of electronic means of payment - concludes the study - will contribute enormously to the drop in prices: with the progressive disappearance of cash, mobile devices will be the preferred payment instrument and more and more companies will want to ensure that smartphones and tablets have the maximum diffusion.
