IDC: U.S. mobile web access to eclipse wireline usage by 2015

By 2015, more U.S. Internet users will access the web via mobile devices than PCs or other wireline channels according to a new forecast issued by research firm IDC. The number of mobile web users is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 16.6 percent between 2010 and 2015, bolstered by increasing smartphone penetration and sales of tablets like Apple's (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPad--IDC adds that PC-based web access across the U.S. will first stagnate then slowly decline, with Western Europe and Japan following the same trend.

Forty percent of the global population will have access to the Internet in 2015, with worldwide users increasing from 2 billion to 2.7 billion, IDC states. The firm adds that global B2C e-commerce spending will grow from $708 billion in 2010 to $1,285 billion in 2015 (a CAGR of 12.7 percent) while online advertising will almost double from $70 billion in 2010 to $138 billion in 2015.

"Forget what we have taken for granted on how consumers use the Internet," said IDC research vice president Karsten Weide in a statement. "Soon, more users will access the web using mobile devices than using PCs, and it's going to make the Internet a very different place."

A Pew Internet & American Life Project survey issued in July stated that 87 percent of all U.S. smartphone owners now access the web or email via mobile device, and 68 percent do so every day. Twenty-five percent of American smartphone users already say they more frequently go online using their phone than on a desktop computer. In addition, roughly one third of "cell mostly" Internet users do not have a high-speed broadband connection at home.

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