A 20% jump in Facebook users accessing accounts from mobiles

Facebook has revealed a large increase in the number of users accessing its services from a smartphone, with an 18% year-on-year jump in monthly active users in the US and 22% in the UK.

According to Reuters, mobile users accounted for around 30% of the social media giant’s first quarter ad revenue.

It comes as part of a deliberate strategy to encourage users to access the service from their mobile devices rather than from desktop computers.

“We see this as a fantastic opportunity with empirical evidence of people staying engaged on mobile phones and using Facebook,” Facebook’s regional director for Britain and Southern Europe, James Quarles, says.

“As people are away and on holiday, it provides a different opportunity for brands to think differently about Facebook.”

The news comes after recent figures showed Facebook accounted for 71.03% of all traffic referrals from a social media website during June 2013, up from 61.5% a year earlier.

Facebook was also the market leader in terms of referral traffic in the US, increased from 46.11% to 51.97%, and the UK, where its share grew to 62.23% from 59.62%.