Wikipedia Mobile Hits 3 Billion Monthly Page Views

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At the end of January, we reached another milestone:  3 billion mobile page views in one month.   This means 14.5 percent of Wikipedia page views now are to the mobile site, up from 9.9 percent a year ago.  Our target in the 2012-13 annual plan is to hit 4 billion monthly mobile page views by the end of the fiscal year (June 2013).

The “Why” of Mobile

The data speaks for itself. Mobile page views rose over 75 percent in 2012, while desktop traffic grew at just under 20 percent [1]. It is clear that much of Wikipedia’s growth is happening on mobile.  We know that two things contribute significantly to this: 1) With mobile internet, readers have new reasons to look things up on Wikipedia, be it either related to context and location or convenience and availability, 2) Many readers in developing countries, specifically where there is limited broadband penetration, are using mobile devices as their first or only means to access the internet.

A look at the data accompanying past mobile milestones reinforces these reasons.  In the 15 months it has taken for mobile traffic to triple (from 1 billion to 3 billion), overall Wikipedia traffic grew just 33 percent, indicating that many loyal readers are shifting their time to mobile devices[2].  Secondly, when Wikipedia hit 500 million mobile page views two years ago, 71 percent of that traffic was to the English Wikipedia.  Today, only 52 percent of mobile traffic is to English Wikipedia, illustrating that mobile growth has become a global phenomenon.
Wikipedia Mobile - Monthly Page View Milestones

The “How” of Mobile

The question is no longer about why mobile matters, but instead how to manage it.  It raises two challenges for Wikimedia — contribution and distribution.   Editing Wikipedia has traditionally happened with a keyboard and monitor, but now smaller screens and touch interfaces are critical to figure out.  Similarly, mobile contributions are likely to be more dependent on the context of the user — where they are, what they are doing, and how much time they have.  With each of these questions, though, also comes immense opportunity to experiment with new editing behaviors like photo upload and micro-contributions. The product team at WMF is tirelessly working on these experiments, with significant headway already made in photo contributions.

The second challenge of the new mobile landscape is how to distribute Wikipedia.  In a purely desktop world, many people discovered Wikipedia through search engines, and high rankings on search results provided credibility and brand equity for the site.  With mobile, though, sessions originate in a more diverse fashion, be it through apps, bookmarks, or even the ‘old-fashioned’ method of direct domain access to familiar sites.  Our official Android and iOS apps cover a lot of this territory, and we see around 40,000 device installs per day on Google Play and approximately 10,000 through the Apple App Store.  Wikipedia Zero, with a current reach of 330 million mobile subscribers, drives awareness of Wikipedia in mobile-centric developing countries and eliminates the cost barrier to accessing it.  Finally, plans are underway to pilot ways to read Wikipedia by text message, and we’re looking at additional app platforms as well. Of course, new mobile readers today become potential new contributors tomorrow, so each of our mobile efforts are part of a virtuous circle of free knowledge.

The potential of mobile is extraordinary, and the work is only beginning. Hope to see you soon at 4 billion.

Amit Kapoor, Senior Manager, Mobile Partnerships

  1. From stats.wikimedia.org (December 2011, December 2012,  percent change): Mobile (1.585 B, 2.799 B, 76.5 percent), Desktop (14.069 B, 17.275 B, 18.2 percent)
  2. Total Wikipedia traffic: October 2011 (16.616 B), January 2013 (22.111 B)

Archive notice: This is an archived post from blog.wikimedia.org, which operated under different editorial and content guidelines than Diff.

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Do you have some stats for mobile, like Android system versions, screen resolutions etc.?

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

What an improvement. Nothing can’t be found in wikipedia. Why? Because you are the best!

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] of all Wikipedia page views now are via mobile, an increase of 4.6% on the same period last year, according to Wikipedia. And if you go back even further, you can see that a mere two years ago, only 500 million arrived […]

[…] Esto significa que casi el 14.5% de páginas vistas de Wikipedia son móviles, un incremento de 4.6% respecto al mismo periodo del año anterior. La empresa espera superar los cuatro mil millones de páginas vistas para junio de 2013, de acuerdo a su blog. […]

[…] Esto significa que casi el 14.5% de páginas vistas de Wikipedia son móviles, un incremento de 4.6% respecto al mismo periodo del año anterior. La empresa espera superar los cuatro mil millones de páginas vistas para junio de 2013, de acuerdo a su blog. […]

[…] [Vía Wikimedia Blog] […]

[…] Wikipedia llega a los 3.177 millones de páginas vistas (al mes) a través de dispositivos móviles […]

[…] [Vía Wikimedia Blog] […]

[…] Enlace |  Wikimedia Blog […]

[…] percent a year ago,” Amit Kapoor, Wikimedia’s senior manager of mobile partnerships, said in a blog post announcing the news. “Our target in the 2012-13 annual plan is to hit 4 billion monthly mobile […]

This is amazing. Wikipedia is the worlds 5th most visited site and you guys are managing it so well. My best wishes are with Wikipedia and with you guys.
And thanks a ton to Wikipedia Authors and Users for sharing such valuable information and that too free of cost. 🙂

[…] Amit Kapoor acknowledged as much in a blog post celebrating the […]

[…] осуществляется с мобильных гаджетов,  говорится в официальном блоге Wikimedia Foundation. По сравнению с […]

“indicating that many loyal readers are shifting their time to mobile devices” is not really correct, because overall traffic grew by 5.5 billion, whereas mobile visits grew by 2 billion.
I still think the hypothesis in question is correct – or at least, I think regular readers are now *also* browsing on their smartphones – but such an interpretation is not really sustainable based on that data alone; “suggesting that” is probably more accurate.

@Harry – you are correct, ‘suggesting’ is more appropriate wording.

[…] ”Helt klart Wikepedias tillväxt mobilt och vi siktar mot fyra miljarder nedladdningar av våra mobilsidor, säger Amit Kapoor, Wikimedia’s chef för mobit samarbete via sin blogg. […]

[…] finds using the Wikipedia iOS app convenient. The fifth most visited website on the Internet reached three billion monthly pageviews on mobile devices at the end of January owing to the burgeoning tribe of mobile users such as Nadar, Ramakrishnan […]

@ Amit Kapoor, Remarkable achievement … According to a survey, the number of people accessing the web through mobile devices has doubled since 2010 …:)

3 Billion. !!!! is it more than what Google gets per month? I guess, if people are getting proper and direct info from Wiki, then there might be chances that People going to Google will reduce considerably. 🙁

is it more than what Google gets per month – i mean the 3 Billion Users on Mobile alone ? I guess, if people are getting proper and direct info from Wiki, then there might be chances that People going to Google will reduce considerably. 🙁

[…] more than 15% of Wikipedia user access the site using a mobile device, Wikipedia will have more than 3 billion eyes who can make sure that all Wiki articles are […]