By Anke Moerdyck

The smartphone is everywhere

34% of UK users indicate using their smartphone on the toilet, 48% whilst watching TV and 65% when visiting family and friends. About 68% use it whilst shopping. A striking result: a ‘mere’ 27% use the smartphone in the car when driving, whereas this number fluctuates between 36% and 48% for the other countries.

89% of the smartphones has a data connection

This brings the UK to the top of the interviewed countries, together with the US. The UK and the US can therefore really be seen as the most ‘mature’ mobile markets.

Elias Veris, Mobile expert at InSites Consulting, explains: “Although on the European mainland the Netherlands are often seen as the example for smartphone usage, we see that on the mobile front the UK is even more advanced. This is reflected in the number of data connections, but also in the fact that the US and the UK make more use of options such as in-store searching for the competitors’ pricing.”

Staying in touch with friends and family is the traditional motive for using a mobile phone (74%). Those remain the main motives for smartphone users, which is also reflected in the high level of usage of social media applications. Added to that are 2 more typical usage motives: first of all 64% of smartphone users admit that a motive is making one’s life easier by having access to information (e.g. online, but also by constantly having access to one’s agenda); and the second motive is entertainment, e.g. at moment when one is waiting for something.

Computers are under pressure

In many cases the PC is still the preferred device: for e-mailing, for surfing, for working and for social networking. But this preference is not always reflected by the actual behaviour: in many cases the smartphone is the only available appliance, so that is the one which is used.

Elias Veris: “Users estimate that at least 5% of the time they currently spend on computer and laptop will go to smartphones and tablets in the near future. I personally think it will be a lot more; at home the tablet will claim a lot more time, and on the road the smartphone will do the same.”

About the survey

The facts and figures in this press release are based on an online survey realised by InSites Consulting among 800 smartphone users in the US, the UK, the Netherlands and Belgium. The full report is available online:

http://www.slideshare.net/InSitesConsulting/mobile-mindset-report-by-insites-consulting.

About the author

Anke Moerdyck is PR for InSites Consulting. The company was founded in 1997, and although a market research agency its founders never really had the ambition of being market researchers. InSites Consulting is in fact a crazy mixture of academic visionaries, passionate marketers and innovating researchers, all determined to tackle the status-quo van of market research. In the past 10 years the company has grown 35% every year. Today they are more than 130 collaborators in 5 offices (Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Romania and the US). The InSites Consulting work has already been rewarded with no less than 15 international awards.

www.insites-consulting.com

@InSites