If you needed any more evidence that the era of ubiquitous computing is upon us, here is one stat that shows us how prevalent smartphones and tablets have become to the daily lives of people everywhere: the majority of porn in the United States is now consumed through mobile devices.
Porn aggregator PornHub released its stats for the year last week to show that 52% its adult content was viewed through a mobile device in 2013. Another 10% of its traffic came from tablets. That’s up from 47% on mobile in 2012 and 7% on tablets.
It is not like PornHub is just some small site serving the whims of a subset of randy Internet users. The site served 14.7 billion visitors this year. That’s 1.68 million visitors an hour. Those viewers watched 63.2 billion videos.
That is an impressive total, to be sure. Especially for one website. But it is not really all that surprising. The Internet has long been dominated by porn and the healthy viewing habits of users have been well documented. At the same time,more than a billion smartphones will be shipped this year with more than 250 million tablets flood out of manufacturers. The desktop and laptop are still important drivers of Internet usage, but increasingly people are reaching for the closest computer to them to get on the Internet. Often, that computer is just the smartphone in your pocket.
The United States was the only country listed on PornHub’s statistics to have the majority of its traffic come from mobile. This makes sense as smartphones have become nearly ubiquitous in the U.S. while still being adopted in countries across the world. That distinction is beginning to blur through as 49% of PornHub’s traffic in 2013 was on a smartphone (40%) or a tablet (9%). The United Kingdom used their tablets most for adult content (15%) while Mexico was second to the U.S. in mobile usage at 45%.
While PornHub is just one network of adult video sites, 14.7 billion visitors is a statistically relevant number to ascertain trends in user viewing habits. Porn usage has mirrored Internet usage for the last 20 years. The writing on the wall is clear: you will use your smartphone and tablet for everything that can be done on the Web.
