It is now a foregone conclusion that smartphone usage has almost become a necessity. In early 2014, the number of mobile users accessing the internet surpassed the number of desktop users. When you look around at the plethora of devices on the market these days, it is not surprising that the usage of mobile devices has graduated from just surfing to making purchases.

Infographic source – http://www.go-gulf.ae/blog/responsive-web-design/

According to GO-Gulf inforgraphic, responsive web design is very important because 80% of smartphone users now use mobile to shop online. Such is the effective of mobile shopping that 70% of mobile searches leads to a purchase within an hour. The conversion rates of mobile devices is nearly three times the conversion rates of desktops or laptop.

More interesting is the fact that the rate of growth of desktop internet users over one year from 2014 to 2015 was 14% compared to the growth of mobile internet users, which was 137%.

According to Huffington Post, the number of local searches through mobile internet access has already overtaken desktop local searches.

More than half of consumer time spent on internet is through mobile devices and more than 67% of shoppers are likely to spend their dollar on websites that are mobile optimized.

With the average smartphone users spending more than 2 hours per day on internet, marketers can be sure to increase their mobile marketing efforts. This means that marketers need to consider how to engage with their customers in order to offer the best online experiences for their products and brands

Already, companies that followed suit and designed their sites for mobile or tablet viewing are reaping big. The figure indicate that 62% of companies that designed their pages for mobile viewing and 64% that designed theirs for tablet viewing have recorded increase in sales.

With responsive mobile web design, you don’t have to worry about losing customers due to the fact that content is not being rendered properly. In fact, 74% of mobile users say they are likely to visit a site again if it works well on their phones. You can imagine the number of prospects you are losing simply by refusing to adopt to changes. Mobile web conversions happen 55% of the time within one hour.

It is clear from the stats that designing your site for mobile or tablet viewing is no longer an option. Companies that have followed suit are already reaping big.

Read more: Responsive Web Design Is Essential