Smartphones are the UK’s most popular device for getting online for the first time, according to industry monitor Ofcom.

The change has largely been driven by our increased appetite for video, and its availability with the expansion of high-speed 4G data networks. Over the past 12 months this has allowed many more people to watch video clips from YouTube or Vine and TV on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer and Netflix on the go.

Smartphones are now responsible for a third of internet access, up from 23% in 2014. Ofcom’s 2015 Communications Data Report shows the success of the devices has been at the expense of laptop computers, the latter dropping from 40% of online connections in 2014 to 30% in 2015.

Two-thirds of adults now have a smartphone, up from 39% in 2012, and the amount of time we spend using them to go online has risen to one hour and 54 minutes per day.

Jane Rumble, director of market intelligence at Ofcom, said the change in internet access was a “landmark shift”.

She said: “You can see these devices are becoming more and more an important vital hub of information and communication throughout the day, with smartphone owners spending almost two hours (on them) each day, almost double the amount of time that those people are spending on their laptop or desktop.

She said younger age groups were driving the change. “Those aged 16 to 24 are much more likely, as well as 25 to 34, to say their smartphone is the most important device to get online, whereas for the older age groups, they are much more likely to be sticking with their laptop. This is a landmark shift.”

Amongst the 55s to 64s there has also been growth, with half the older age group now owning a smartphone.

Smartphone addicts

More than a third of all adults (34%) use their smartphone within five minutes of waking up, a figure that rises to almost half (49%) of those aged 18-24, the report’s research found.



But the big difference from the previous year’s report was down to 4G. Subscriptions to the high-speed mobile internet, which was first introduced in the UK in 2012, rose eightfold from 2.7 million in the last quarter of 2013 to 23.6 million in the last quarter of 2014, as it became more widespread.

The 4G technology allows video content and streaming services to be watched on the handsets, which older, slower connections could not handle without irritating buffering, and that leads to a big difference in how people use their smartphones: almost two-thirds (62%) of 4G phone owners told Ofcom they “couldn’t live without” their phone, compared to 52% of all smartphone users.

Rumble said: “It really is becoming an important and vital device throughout the day. The increase in 4G subscriptions has been very stark in the last year.”

It was not just smartphones which reported increased use for online access, as tablets rose to 19% in 2015, up from 15% in 2014 and 8% in 2013. Both laptops and desktop computers declined, with desktops now accounting for just 14% of internet use.

Wired internet has sped up too, with superfast broadband now available to 83% of UK premises (still 12% short of government targets) while around a quarter of homes are actually subscribed to a service delivering speeds of 30 megabits a second or more, the speed required to gain the “superfast” label.

Perhaps as a result, the report also showed society’s increasing digital connectivity. The total amount of time people spent online rose from 9.9 hours per week in 2005 to 20.5 hours per week in 2014.

However, traditional television remains the entertainment king. The average adult watched three hours and 40 minutes of television per day in 2014, 11 minutes less than in 2013. Last year was the second year in a row that watching time had declined.