comScore puts Mobile Future in Focus

Cristina Blanaru Mobile, Studies

comScore released 2012 Mobile Future in Focus, annual report examining mobile and connected device landscape, through an exploration of key trends driving smartphone adoption growth, mobile media usage in categories such as social networking and retail, mobile ecosystem dynamics, and shifts in multi-device digital media consumption in 2011. The study highlights mainly mobile markets in US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, UK, Japan, and Canada.

The full report can be downloaded on comScore’s website.

Key findings highlighted in 2012 Mobile Future in Focus:

  • Smartphones Gain Adoption Among “Early Majority” , Driving Mobile Media Consumption – @42% of all U.S. mobile subscribers now use smartphones, along with 44% of mobile users across the EU5 (comprised of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK). Mobile media use – defined as browsing the mobile web, accessing applications, or downloading content – saw increased growth as a result, surpassing the 50-percent threshold in many markets, supported by the proliferation of high-speed networks and increased public WiFi availability.
  • Smartphone Platform Wars Intensify As Android and Apple Take the Lead in Most Markets –  Google Android and Apple iOS platforms were leaders of U.S. smartphone market in 2011 (Android with almost 50% market quote and iOS – around 30%). In the EU5, Android unseated Symbian in 3 out of the 5 European markets measured.
  • Surge in Mobile App Usage Shapes a Dual Mobile Browsing Experience, Fueling Category Growth – In 2011, both the U.S. and EU5 saw the growth in mobile app use exceed the growth in mobile browser use, leading to both markets seeing the same percentage of their mobile audience use both apps and browsers to access mobile media.
  • Mobile Retail Information Leads to Emergence of Smartphone Shopping Behaviors – Over 50% of U.S. smartphone population used their phone to perform retail research while inside a store in 2011, illustrating the emergence of savvy smartphone shoppers who bring online shopping behaviors in-store – a trend seen in other markets as well. At the end of 2011, nearly 1 in 5 smartphone users scanned product barcodes and nearly 1 in 8 compared prices on their phone while in a store.
  • Mobile Devices Fuel Social Networking On-The-Go, Driving Real-Time Online Interaction – 64.2 million U.S. smartphone users and 48.4 million EU5 smartphone users accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile devices at least once in December 2011, with over 50% of them doing so on daily basis. While mobile social networking users showed the highest propensity to read posts from people they knew personally, more than half of those in the U.S. and nearly half in the EU5 also reported reading posts from brands, organizations, and events.
  • Mobile Connectivity and Connected Devices Encourage Cross-Platform Digital Media Consumption among “Digital Omnivores” – Tablets quickly rose in popularity in 2011, taking less than two years to account for nearly 40 million tablets in use among U.S. mobile users and outpacing smartphones which took 7 years to reach the same. By the end of 2011, nearly 15 percent of U.S. mobile users also had tablets – a trend seen across other markets as well.

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