While the "mobile revolution" seems like "old news," in fact it was only in October 2016 that mobile web usage surpassed desktop usage globally. Obviously, some countries, and some categories, are ahead of the curve in terms of their mobile vs desktop usage – trends I'll explore in this post.

Specifically, I'll use Similarweb digital research intelligence data to explore how traffic patterns differ across 21 countries, reflecting most of the world's key markets (with the exception of China). And for simplicity, I've focused on the top 100 sites within each country (although the results, in relative terms, don't differ dramatically if the number of sites is expanded). Then I will drill deeper into our US data to explore device preferences across two dozen high-level categories. To maximize data stability, these data are aggregated over the past year, meaning they will tend to slightly underestimate mobile web usage today.