With today’s webinar being the last of the year we wanted to pick a topic that had a big impact on the industry in 2010. All of the major national tradeshows this year, including the recent NMHC Tech Conference, have discussed mobile websites. So we went back and looked at our industry mobile analytics and were quite surprised with the data and the increase in usage.

Overall Traffic

According to our portfolio data,  mobile traffic was only making up 1.3 percent of overall traffic to property websites. Currently, mobile traffic makes up 6.8 percent of overall traffic to property websites. That’s a 423 percent increase in mobile traffic! We’re confident that these numbers will continue to rise from month to month, and the need for mobile websites will increase to accommodate the growing percentage of prospects and residents that want to access property websites via phone. Will we be above 15 percent by summer?

iPhone vs. Android

From February to June 2010 the iPhone held a huge share of the mobile browsing market in the industry at 56 percent, with the Android at 22 percent. From July to November the Android jumped up to 29 percent and the iPad doubled it’s percentage in mobile devices being used in the industry.

Although the iPhone’s percentage went down in comparison to other mobile devices, you have to remember that overall industry mobile usage increased by 423 percent! Nothing is really going down. Usage of the iPhone to access industry mobile websites almost doubled from the first half of the year to the second half of the year. The Android increased by 226 percent and the iPad increased by 396 percent (keep in mind the iPad was only introduced in April, so its data is slighty skewed).

Residents vs. Prospects

Who is using your mobile interface? As of February, mobile usage was almost split evenly between residents and prospects, but as the year has progressed we’ve seen quite a large divide begin to develop in usage on mobile sites. Now, as high as 62 percent of mobile browsing is by residents. This could be attributed to the multiple and continuous functions that mobile websites provide to residents, such as online payments and maintenance requests. As mentioned before, all industry mobile usage is increasing. November saw 32,276 visits on the resident portal, whereas prospect portal visits were 19,782. Prospects visiting mobile sites are increasing, but not in the same fashion that resident usage is. What are some ways properties can increase prospect mobile usage?

Geographic Strategy

The chart above lists the top cities, measured from our client data, for mobile participation. We were surprised by some of the cities’ data, like Los Angeles, but it’s important to do some research when considering mobile websites to see which of your properties may benefit from having a mobile website. Property Solutions can share mobile statistics with you and find your mobile usage for your individual website.

You can view the complete power point presentation from the webinar here with additional statistics and information. If you have any questions about our data or any suggestions pertaining to mobile website best practices please share. Our next webinar will be January 25th where we will discuss industry budget trends and give a full Property Solutions product overview. You can register here. Hope to see you there!