Tut tut, Europeans are lagging behind the Japanese and Americans when it comes to using the internet on their mobile phones. But maybe we’ve just got something better to do than browse?!
Do I access the web on my mobile? No. Would I if I had a sexy smartphone? Of course I would. My life would melt away into a flurry of on-the-go tweeting, Googling and Reddit browsing. Not to mention apps I’d obsessively download to supposedly make my life run more efficiently.
However, according to some research by ComScore, Europe (that includes the UK, don’t you know) is behind in portable internet. Only two in five European mobile phone users access the net – either through a browser, using web-connected apps or downloading content. This is in comparison to a whopping three quarters of Japan’s mobile users and four in ten Americans.
Europe prefers texting
Where Europe does earn brownie points is in text messaging – eight in ten of us send SMSs (probably vacuous ‘Im on teh bus’ texts), with only four in ten in Japan. Presumably they’re too busy sending emails instead.
Naturally, as Techradar points out, combining all of Europe into one big pie is going to mix up the results a bit – it’s likely that us Brits are much closer to our American cousins.
Another little bit of research from Orange separates these European countries into individual markets. It shows that more developed countries, like the UK, tend to prefer using a browser to access the web on our mobiles, whereas less developed countries favour using apps instead.
We do stand proud together in one area though – all European markets prefer emailing over social networking on our mobiles. But that’ll no doubt change shortly – with over 500 million users, Facebook isn’t set to die any time soon (sadly).