According to the latest research from comScore in its global 2012 Mobile Future in Focus report, the UK leads the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and Canada in terms of smartphone penetration (51.3%).
Smartphones have gained rapid adoption among consumers, and comScore highlighted mobile social media in Europe as one of the key drivers, with social media accessed by 48.4 million consumers – an increase of 76 per cent since past year.
Google Android saw significant gains in the EU in the race to deliver smartphone platforms, unseating market leader Symbian in 3 out of 5 European markets measured. Apple’s iPhone4 and iPhone 3GS lead as the year’s most acquired devices, but Nokia still accounted for the largest share of total mobile handsets in use (feature phone and smartphones combined) across four of the five EU countries. That plays to Microsoft as it rebuilds its platform share through partnership with Nokia.
Despite all the talk of tablet devices breaking through in 2011, in the EU only 8.3 percent of all mobile subscribers reported having a tablet. comScore however believes tablets herald “a shift to an increasingly multi-device lifestyle that is becoming the norm for many consumers” who it names ‘digital omnivores.’ Despite accessing the same content, comScore believes each device – smartphone and tablet – has very different peak usage times throughout a typical day, highlighting varying use cases to the digitally-connected consumer.
