Smartphones, tablets drive shift in European media consumption
January 23, 2012
Digital business analytics specialist comScore and mobile telco TelefЧnica Germany have shared the results of a study showing the shift in media consumption triggered by smartphones, tablets and other connected devices. The report – Connected Europe – How Smartphones and Tablets are Shifting Media Consumption – was revealed at the DLD (Digital Life Design) conference in Munich.
“Not too long ago, consumers depended solely on their computer to connect to the Internet. Today, cross-platform consumption has created a vastly different landscape as consumers utilise a growing number of devices to consume digital content on a daily basis,” said Linda Abraham, comScore chief marketing officer. “There is a need for more inclusive marketing strategies to engage a brand’s total audience,” she advised.
Among the report’s key findings:
- In the EU5 (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK), computer usage accounted for 95.1 per cent of all browser-based page views, with mobile devices accounting for a considerable 3.2 per cent of all traffic.
- Within the 4.9 per cent non-computer traffic, tablets generated more than one in four non-computer page views.
- Consumption of Mobile Media is booming. 75 per cent of smartphone users in the EU5 used mobile media in October 2011, an increase of 62 per cent in the past year.
- Apple demonstrates leadership. While Nokia’s Symbian and Google’s Android currently have the highest market share amongst smartphone platforms, when combining smartphones, tablets and other devices Apple’s iOS holds the top spot, with a 30 per cent share of connected devices in use.
The report also indicates that in the EU5, over 13 million smartphone users access mobile retail sites. Mobile retail is one of the fastest growing activities amongst smartphone users, with more than 13.6 million EU5 smartphone owners accessing a retail site in October 2011. Similar to other trends revealed in this study, the UK had the largest audience with 4.7 million people, but Germany accounted for the largest increase in users with a 112 per cent growth year-over-year. Furthermore, the German smartphone population showed the fastest adoption of emerging technologies, such as QR codes.
“The smartphone is revolutionising the retail business,” said RenО Schuster, CEO at TelefЧnica Germany. “More and more consumers use their device as a shopping tool – to compare prices and products right in the shop. The findings from this report confirm my view that 2012 will be the year of mobile retail, placing great importance on network performance and speed of data transfer,” he declared.