European smartphone owners make online purchases via their device

comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of mobile phone usage across the five leading European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom) using data from the comScore MobiLens service. The study showed that the European mobile retail audience grew by 43% over the past year, with 20% of smartphone users accessing online retail sites and apps using their device. In addition, 1 in 7 European smartphone users reported having completed a retail transaction on their mobile phone in a month.

Retail site visitation via smartphone differs significantly across EU5

In the three month average ending August 2013, 20.4% of the EU5 smartphone audience accessed online retail sites, displaying an increase of 2.8 percentage points in the past year. Spain was the fastest growing market with a growth rate of 66.5% to almost 3.3 million smartphone users accessing retail sites on their mobile. Italy ranked second with a growth rate of 61.3% to almost 5.6 million smartphone users accessing those sites on their device. When looking at the year-on-year growth of smartphone owners accessing online retail sites, Italy ranks first with a 4.8 percentage point increase, reaching a level of 19.3% of smartphone users accessing retail sites in a month. In terms of audience size, Germany had the largest number of smartphone users accessing retail sites (9.9 million), followed by the UK with 9.7 million.

36.6 million European smartphone users take pictures of a product whilst in a retail store

Taking a picture of a product whilst in a physical retail store was the most popular in-store activity performed by smartphone owners in the EU5, with nearly a quarter of users (23.5%) doing so during the month. Europeans also tend to seek advice from friends and family when making purchase decisions, as 14.3% sent a picture of a product and 14.0% called or texted friends/family about a product.

1 in 7 European smartphone owners engage in m-commerce transactions

Approximately 1 in 7 European smartphone users (14.6%) purchased goods or services via their device in August 2013. The number of Europeans engaging in m-commerce transactions has increased by 37% over the year from 16.6 million users in August 2012 to 22.8 million in August 2013.
An analysis of the top 5 goods and services purchased via smartphone showed clothing or accessories (5.4%) and consumer electronics/household appliances (3.8% of smartphone audience) were the most popular retail categories. Other services or goods purchased by smartphone owners in Europe were books (3.8%), tickets (3.4%) and personal care or hygiene products (2.6%).