US Digital Users: The eMarketer Forecast for 2017

Executive Summary

Internet usage is widespread in the US, with 83.7% of the population expected to go online regularly this year. Mobile will continue to become the primary device for internet access over the forecast period.

• In 2017, more than two-thirds of the US population will use a smartphone. With such high usage, growth will slow throughout the forecast period, from 6.1% in 2017 to 1.4% in 2021.
• This year, more than eight in 10 internet users will use a mobile phone to access the web regularly. As smartphone adoption slows, so will mobile phone internet usage—by 2021, penetration will reach 86.5%.
• Nearly 15% of internet users, or 40.7 million individuals, will use only a mobile device to go online in 2017, an increase of 11.2%. The number of mobile-only internet users will continue to rise as more people abandon internet usage via desktop/laptop.
• Over three-quarters of internet users will continue to access the internet via both a mobile device and PC in 2017, adding roughly 9 million new users throughout the forecast period. However, as a result of more people using just their mobile device for online access, the multidevice internet user share will start to shrink by 2020.