46 per cent of UK internet users access web on their phone

Here are some selected findings.

Social Media

•    Between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of UK consumers use a mobile phone to access their social network profile page. UK consumers are the most likely to access a social networking website via a mobile phone, with just over four in ten (43 per cent) accessing their profile page via an app or the web browser on their mobile phone.

•    The majority of UK consumers with a social networking profile visit it on a daily basis. 71 per cent of those interviewed in the UK with a social networking profile claimed to visit a social networking site at least once a day. This includes 20 per cent who visit a social networking website five times a day or more. 

Mobile broadband

•    Mobile broadband prices in the UK were the second lowest after Italy. Prices in the UK, Germany and the US increased between July 2010 and July 2011 due to higher prices for high-use connections, as some operators withdrew tariffs with the most generous inclusive data bundles and moved toward tiered pricing based on data use.

Smartphones

•    Smartphone take-up is highest in the UK (46 per cent of all mobile users) and Spain (45 per cent) among the big five European economies. Ownership of smartphones nearly doubled in the UK between February 2010 and August 2011

Mobile web

•    Nearly half (46 per cent) of UK internet users also accessed internet services on their mobile phone in October 2011. This was more than in the US (41 per cent), Italy (40 per cent), France (39 per cent) and Germany (38 per cent). In all countries surveyed across the period, use more than doubled between 2008 and 2011. UK users are also more likely to use a mobile phone to send text messages, use applications, access social network sites and play games than their counterparts in France, Germany, Italy, the US and Spain.

New devices

•    New internet-connected devices are gaining a foothold. In the UK, the US and France, more than one in eight internet users use a games console to access the internet, and tablet computers are used by between 6  per cent and 9 per cent of internet users in all six countries surveyed. Use of internet-connected TVs is highest in France, at 6 per cent of internet users (4 per cent in the UK). 

Mobile ads

•    In 2010, the UK mobile internet advertising market grew by 118 per cent to £83m; the third largest behind the US and Japan. While the UK’s mobile internet ad spend per head (£1.33) is greater than in the US (£1.25), Japan dwarfs both its nearest rivals, spending £6.52 per person on mobile internet advertising.

Mobile data adoption

•    More than two-thirds (68 per cent) of voice minutes across the 13 countries we have data for originated on mobile networks in 2010, compared to 48 per cent in 2005. There was a good deal of variation between countries – in China 96 per cent of calls in 2010 originated on mobile networks, whereas in Germany the figure was just 34%. In the UK, 50% of calls were from mobiles in 2010, up from 32 per cent in 2005.

•    The widespread take-up of mobile data services, including dongle-based mobile broadband and smartphone use, resulted in an increase in global data consumption of 159 per cent in 2010. Cisco Systems’ Visual Networking Index found that UK data volumes increased by 124 per cent to an average of 266MB per mobile connection per month in 2010. This compares to 160MB for the US and 348MB for Japan.