The mobile tipping point has finally arrived! For the first time ever, in 2011 global shipments of smartphones exceeded personal computers by 73 million units. This major milestone heralds the explosion the mobile web and highlights the importance of developing content and engagement strategies geared to the mobile environment.

As Forbes.com reports:

Last year a total of 487.7 million smartphones were shipped. Only 414.6 million PCs, which include tablet PCs, shipped. That’s a 62.7 percent increase on shipments of smartphones over 2010

“In the space of a few years, smartphones have grown from being a niche product segment at the high-end of the mobile phone market to becoming a truly mass-market proposition,” Canalys VP Chris Jones said. “The greater availability of smartphones at lower price points has helped tremendously, but there has been a driving trend of increasing consumer appetite for Internet browsing, content consumption and engaging with apps and services on mobile devices.”

Jones said the overtaking of PCs by the smartphone should be seen as a significant achievement. It’s yet another important step on the road from isolated, search-oriented computing to a more social, mobile, and inter-connected web.

While this does not signal the death of the desktop computer, the future is clearly mobile. At Connections Media we consistently see 15% to 25% of client site traffic originating from mobile devices – mostly as a result of social media. Organizations and campaigns that fail to account for the mobile experience when designing web and content strategies will quickly be left behind.