With 56% share of consumer consumption between the iPhone and the iPod Touch – it’s very clear that Apple has a stranglehold on the mobile web with their devices.  Android has clearly made a big splash in terms of share of devices sold – however Apple is still dominant in consumption of content via handhelds.  Data chart – courtesy Quantcast.

While Web consumption on mobile devices is going up, the satisfaction with the experience is still far from acceptable.  According to a research study by Gomez Inc, the largest shortfall centers around load times of the sites that mobile users are expecting to render quickly.  The wait ‘tolerance’ of those surveyed was 6-10 seconds.  Generous, in my opinion, as I tend to be less patient than the average consumer.  Following a close second to load times in customer dissatisfaction was the actual experience with the site when it did load.  Poor performance on both fronts often prove to be fatal to a site and the consumer’s brand perception of that site, as outlined by this quote from the Gomez study:

“The majority of mobile web users would be less likely to visit a mobile website again if they had a bad experience, and two out of five would visit a competative site instead.  More than half of mobile web users are unlikely to return to a website that they had trouble accessing it from their phone, and more than two-thirds are unlikely to recommend the site.”

As consumers continue to lead a more ‘connected’ lifestyle, the reliance on mobile devices for delivering content and performing computing tasks will continue to rise – as will the consumer’s expectations of the experience delivered to them on that device.