This year s Internet Trend Report is out, and it has findings that could make you rethink that way you do business online. Open Access BPO highlights some of the key trends to help you build a stronger digital marketing strategy.

Venture capitalist and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers partner, Mary Meeker, has released the much anticipated 2014 edition of the Internet Trend Report, which reflected a trend that has been constantly spotted in the past few releases of the study—the rising use of mobile technology in marketing. Here are some of the key findings included in the research:

Internet access growth is led by mobile

The report states that the growth of Internet access has slowed down but not on mobile. What does this mean for businesses? If you only market on the web, you have a lower chance of expanding audience reach because:

• The number of people accessing the web via desktop is growing less than 10% annually.

• Smartphone subscribers show a stronger growth at 20%.

• Smartphone use is at its peak, with a 30% growth since 2009 and 315 million units shipped worldwide in the last quarter of 2013.

• Tablet use is a different story, as the increasing demand for the device led manufacturers to produce 52% more tablets last year.

• Mobile traffic accelerated by 81%, thanks primarily to video content.

• Now, mobile accounts for 25% of the total Internet usage, a rate that is 11 times higher than the 2013 figure.

Massive growth in Internet use seen in underpenetrated markets

An interesting finding is that Internet use grows fastest in developing markets that are hard to monetize, such as Indonesia, Nigeria, and India. Smartphone users are also increasing most rapidly in markets that mobile manufacturers have yet to fully penetrate, including China, Indonesia, India, and Brazil. Africans, meanwhile, are reportedly the biggest Internet users in the world, consuming 38% of the overall tally. They are followed by Asians, whose share is at 37%, and by North Americans, South Americans, Australians, and Europeans, with 19%, 17%, 17%, and 16% respectively.

A new breed of consumerism

Unsurprisingly, mobile digital marketing is shaping the way business is done even more. It follows that consumer behavior and preference are increasingly dependent on mobile devices. For one, brick-and-mortar businesses are seeing less and less customers because:

• People spend 20% of their time using mobile devices, and 25% is spent online.

• People prefer mobile counterparts of activities that used to be done in person or over the phone. Bookings, orders, purchases, and payments can be transacted via the mobile web, and there also apps that replace the traditional methods of hailing a cab, buying music, watching TV, and finding business establishments.

Many businesses, however, are still missing out on the opportunity to grow by leveraging on mobile technologies. The Internet Trend Report revealed that:

• Only 4% of the total ad spending goes to mobile activities even if 20% of the consumers time is spent there.

• The share for Internet ads is also 3% short of the 25% of the time people spend online.

• The majority or 45% of ad budget is spent on TV even though this medium only makes up 38% of consumer time consumption.

• The public spends the least of their time on print media (5%), but published ads consume 19% of the promotional budget.

The gist

The mobile user demographic is a promising market that many businesses have yet to tap despite the gradual transfer of their marketing and advertising efforts from traditional forms of media to mobile ones. Mary Meeker s Internet Trend Report reflects the foreseeable dominance of mobile technology as the primary platform for market engagement, so businesses wanting to lead their industry must take advantage of mobile tools.