53% of mobile users abandon a site that takes over 3 seconds to load
Outdated Confidence: high
Source found and quoted correctly, but old enough that the market has changed.
- Commonly cited as
- "53% of mobile visitors leave if a page takes longer than 3 seconds" (as current)
- True origin
- Google / DoubleClick — The need for mobile speed
- Type
- Stat check: A widely repeated statistic traced back to its origin.
- Year
- 2016 (March 2016 data)
- Data as of
- 2016 (March 2016 data)
- Last checked
- What the source says
53% of visits are likely to be abandoned if pages take longer than 3 seconds to load
- Method & sample
- Aggregated, anonymized Google Analytics data from about 3,700 opted-in mobile sites, March 2016, many on 3G.
- Drift between quote and source
- Wording: 'likely to be abandoned' (modeled) quoted as measured
- Date: 10-year-old 3G-era data
- Interest
- Google sells ads and promoted its AMP format at the time.
Safe rephrasing
Google's 2016 analysis of ~3,700 mobile sites estimated 53% of visits are likely abandoned when pages take over 3 seconds.
Sources we opened
- Google: The need for mobile speed (2016) (primary)
Machine-readable: /api/claims/53-percent-mobile-abandon-3-seconds.json · Last checked 2026-10-16