Big tech forced to answer the phone

This year has seen a momentous change in the shape of the global Internet. More people now access the web on mobile phones than PCs in China, home to the world’s largest population of Internet users. North America and Europe are not far behind in making that digital switchover, as are fast-growing Internet markets such as Turkey and Indonesia. This presents a big challenge to today’s Internet leaders – Google and Facebook, as well as Yahoo and Microsoft – that emerged when most of their customers typically used the web while sitting in front of a large, static screen. Some mobile executives liken accelerating growth in the mobile internet to the disruption print newspapers faced from readers’ shift online. That creates opportunities for so-called mobile-first start-ups to potentially unseat the current leaders.