General

• Nearly 42 percent of all U.S. mobile subscribers now use smartphones, along with 44 percent of mobile users across the EU5 (comprised of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the UK).
• Health ranked as the fastest-growing mobile media category in the U.S. in 2011, followed by Retail and other commerce-related categories such as Electronic Payments and Auction Sites.

Retail

• More than half of the U.S. smartphone population used their phone to perform retail research while inside a store in 2011
• At the end of 2011, nearly 1 in 5 smartphone users scanned product barcodes and nearly 1 in 8 compared prices on their phone while in a store
• Females were more likely to use their devices to share their shopping experience socially while males were more likely to do product research

Social

• 64.2 million U.S. smartphone users and 48.4 million EU5 smartphone users accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile devices at least once in December 2011.
• More than half of those in the U.S. and nearly half in the EU5 also reported reading posts from brands, organizations, and events.
• Predictions on mobile social networking apps for 2012

Tablets

• Tablets quickly rose in popularity in 2011, taking less than two years to reach nearly 40 million tablets in use among the U.S. mobile population, significantly outpacing smartphones which took 7 years to reach similar levels of adoption.
• By the end of 2011, nearly 15 percent of U.S. mobile users also had tablets – a trend seen across other markets as well.
• Tablets have emerged as the fourth screen, heralding a shift to an increasingly multi-device lifestyle that is becoming the norm for many consumers we call “digital omnivores” who engage seamlessly with multiple online touchpoints throughout a day.

 

References

2012 Mobile Future in Focus. (2012). ComScore. Retrieved May 28, 2012, from http://http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2012/2012_Mobile_Future_in_Focus

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