Research firm, comScore Inc., has released a new report that has shown that 42 percent of mobile phone users in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Spain, and Italy are smartphone owners.
This same research also showed that 6.6 percent of the owners of smartphones also have tablet devices.
The largest portion of mobile device owners have products running on the Apple iOS operating system, including the iPad, iPhone, and the iPod Touch. comScore’s data states that the market share is divided as follows: 30 percent for Apple, 27 percent with Android (Google), 26 percent with Symbian, 8 percent with BlackBerry, 7.5 percent with Windows Phone, and 4 percent with another operating system.
The study indicated the Europeans are taking hold with m-commerce, as 14 percent of smartphone owners in the five nations that participated in the research had accessed mobile commerce apps and sites.
Owners of smartphones in Europe have also been using their devices to help with the shopping process while they are in stores.
Among those users, 21.8 percent had used the device to take a picture of a product, 14.9 percent had called or texted a friend or family member about a product, 10.9 percent had used the smartphone to scan a barcode, 10.1 percent had taken a picture which they then shared with a friend or family member, 6.6 percent used a website’s store locator tool, 6.4 percent had used the device to perform a price comparison, 4.5 percent used a smartphone to perform further research into a product, 3.9 percent found discount coupons using the device, and 2.4 percent had checked the availability of a product at a store location.
