European Shoppers to Spend Twice as much on Mobile

Shoppers in Europe are expected to spend £19.8 billion through their mobile devices 2014; with British shoppers alone expected to spend £8 billion on their tablets and smartphones.

It is expected that around one in five online shopping transactions in the UK will take place on mobile devices in 2014. In Europe, every £5 spent in 2014 is expected to be spent through a mobile device, with more than half of all Europeans owning a smartphone or tablet.

Here in the UK, we are the biggest mobile shoppers in Europe. British shoppers are significantly more likely than those in other EU countries to browse online shops on their smartphone, with 28% of smartphone users making purchases through their smartphone.

Last year, British shoppers accounted for £4.9 billion spent online through a smartphone or tablet, which is more than 10% of Europe’s online spending which was £38.8 billion as a whole. Globally, United States is the only country which tops the UK in the number of purchases made through a mobile device in 2013. However, shoppers in the other major European countries, such as France and Italy are significantly less likely to even browse retail stores through their smartphone or tablet.

PCs and laptops currently remain the most popular medium for accessing the internet, and accounted for 85% of the UK’s, and seven other EU countries, web activity in 2013. Despite this, mobile shopping across the European Union is forecasted to increase by a staggering 85% over the next year, showing that mobile devices are increasingly becoming the main medium for people to access the internet.

The mobile market really is the fast growing market in history; with European smartphone sales expected to hit 1.9 billion in 2014. This growth is so substantial that it has already eclipsed the dot com boom of the late 1990’s. Here in the UK, and increasingly globally, if you go into any mobile phone shop all you will see for sale are smartphones. However, in the UK, 95% of businesses do not have their mobile solutions in place to keep pace with their increasingly mobile customers; therefore the market really is wide open to get these businesses mobile.