Despite its popularity online, smartphone users are ditching search in favour of direct navigation, according to new research.
The study commissioned by Telmetrics and xAd, and conducted by Nielsen, looked at search engine usage in certain verticals such as travel, automobiles and restaurants.
It found that using a search engine was secondary to direct navigation most of the time.
For example, in the Travel category, tablet users went directly to familiar sites/apps (46 percent) or apps/sites they had previously used (49 percent) more often than they used search engines (15 percent) to find information.
Smartphone users also went directly to websites/apps in all three verticals more often than they used search engines for information:
Travel:
• Direct navigation — 43 percent
• Search engine –24 percent
Autos:
• Direct navigation — 46 percent
• Search engine –37 percent
Restaurants:
• Direct navigation — 44 percent
• Search engine — 33 percent
The study also looked at common use-cases for both smartphone and tablet users. Not surprisingly, the study found that 73% of the mobile users had looked for a phone number and contacted a business within the past 30 days.
In addition, 84 percent had looked for a business location, a map or driving directions in the past month.
Mobile search future- voice and handwriting?
Search market leader Google seems to be aware of this problem, and has been investing in alternative search options to boost searches on mobiles, including voice search and handwriting-based search.
The company just announced that it is bringing its revamped voice-enabled search software to Apple’s iOS mobile operating system, where it will go head-to-head with Apple’s own Siri voice search tool.
View the infographic displaying the findings below:
Sources:
http://www.telmetrics.com/
http://www.xad.com/
