Smartphone market in UK continues to set pace

 Ofcom has reported that smartphone take-up in the UK continues to grow rapidly and way ahead of other European nations.

 

Figures from Ofcom’s International Communications Market survey, which covers the global telecommunications market, show that the UK had the sharpest growth in smartphone subscribers in 2010.

 

UK take-up rose by 70% on the previous year while in Italy, the country which has the highest amount of smartphones per head, take-up climbed by just 11%.

 

The Ofcom report, which included 17 different countries worldwide, shows that in Italy there are 26 smartphone users for every 100 people. Next on that list comes Spain where there 21 for every 10, with the UK third with 18 subscribers.

 

Spain has the highest number of smartphone subscribers who pay over the £35 a month threshold and the UK the second- highest. But the UK is showing rapid growth in this area too, with a rise of 61% in high value subscribers since 2009 compared to Spain’s modest 4% rise.

 

This year has also seen UK users using their smartphones more for mobile mapping and social networking than any other country in Europe. The use of mapping and direction services by UK users grew by a huge 86%, with nine out of every 100 people now utilising those services. In Germany and France that number was just 5 in every 100.

 

UK subscribers were way ahead of the next on the list, Germany, for social networking too, with 24% use as opposed to 13%. Also, there are more smartphone subscribers in the UK using their phones for social networking than in any other country. A whopping 86% of 18-24s use Facebook et al on their phones, with the Japanese next on 77% and the French on 48%.

 

The UK though, came behind Ireland for SMS usage, with an average of 140 messages per user compared to 218 in Ireland.