A
major new study into mobile usage around the world that comScore is
billing as the first comparative report on mobile usage in the U.S.,
Japan and Europe finds that American users lag behind Japanese and
European users in a number of key areas, including their propensity to
watch TV shows or video on a mobile device and their likelihood of
browsing for content, accessing apps or downloading content.
Just
4.8% of U.S. mobile users in June of 2010 watched TV or video on a
mobile phone, versus 5.4% in Europe and 22.0% in Japan, according to the
comScore MobiLens report.
Japanese users were also the most
connected, with 75.2% browsing, accessing applications or downloading
content, compared to 43.7% in the U.S. and 38.5% in Europe.
U.S.
users were also less likely to access traffic reports (8.2%) compared to
12.6% in Japan but more likely than Europeans (5.9%) and they also
lagged behind in Japan in accessing weather information, with 34.1% of
Japanese accessing weather, 22.3% of Americans and 13.7% of Europeans.
U.S.
users led in social media, with 21.3% accessing a social networking
site or blog, compared to 17.0% in Japan and 14.7% in Europe.
Europeans
were the heaviest users of text messages (81.7%), followed by the U.S.
(66.8%) and Japan (40.1%) and they led in games with 24.1% playing games
on mobile devices compared to 22.5% of Americans and 16.3% of Japanese.
The
study also found that Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter were the
most popular social networking sites in the U.S. for mobile devices.
