Looking at individual platforms, the majority of Facebook’s US users have been mobile-only since 2016. This year, we expect that 66.3% of them will access the platform exclusively on a mobile device. Twitter will also continue to have a healthy share of mobile-only users at 22.9 million, or 43.1% of its US users.
Then there are the networks that are mobile-only themselves. Instagram, which can be accessed via desktop browsers but lacks essential features like the ability to post content, is the second-most-popular network in the country, with 106.7 million users. And Snapchat, another network that’s essentially mobile-only, will have 77.5 million US users this year.
How are marketers responding to the shift?
The vast majority of Facebook’s ad revenues already come from mobile and have since 2014. Its mobile revenues will continue to grow—reaching 94.0% of total ad revenues this year—and rumors have abounded that the company will increasingly look to “mobilize” its platform in the future. Perhaps most telling is that Facebook has begun internally testing a prototype that would shift its marquee News Feed to a more mobile-friendly swipe interface, suggesting that its future ad placements will take the form of vertical images that are fit for mobile screens.