UK Leads European Countries in Smartphone Adoption with 70% Growth in Past 12 Months

comScore, Inc. has released a study of the smartphone market in Europe showing that smartphone adoption in the EU5 (U.K., France, Germany, Spain, Italy) has grown 32 percent versus a year ago to 51.6 million subscribers. Whilst growth can be seen across the range of monthly subscription fees, the mid to low tier is growing faster than high tier subscriptions in each of the EU5 markets. The U.K. market strongly leads in growth of smartphone adoption over the past year, growing 70 percent to more than 11 million subscribers. France ranks second in growth with the number of smartphone subscribers up 48 percent to 7 million. Meanwhile, Italy boasts the largest number of smartphone subscribers overall (15 million) but showed the softest growth in this market at 11 percent.

Smartphone Subscribers 3 Month Average Ending Jan. 2010 vs. 3 Month Average Ending Jan. 2009 Total EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT), Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Smartphone Subscribers (000)
	Jan-09	Jan-10	% Change
EU5	38,994	51,623	32%
U.K.	6,525	11,109	70%
France	4,842	7,140	48%
Germany	6,309	8,429	34%
Spain	7,809	9,907	27%
Italy	13,510	15,037	11%

In evaluating monthly subscription fees, the high tier (greater than £35 in U.K. and €50 in Euro currency countries) is not growing as strongly as the mid to low tier. The U.K. has the highest pace of both mid to low tier adoption (up 76 percent) and high-tier adoption (up 60 percent), followed by France (52 percent and 43 percent, respectively).

Smartphone Growth by Payment Tier*3 Month Average Ending Jan. 2010 vs. 3 Month Average Ending Jan. 2009Total EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT), Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Smartphone Subscribers (000)
	Mid to Low Tier			High Tier
	Jan-2009	Jan-2010	% Change	Jan-2009	Jan-2010	% Change
U.K.	3,826	6,745	76%	2,515	4,037	60%
France	3,087	4,695	52%	1,600	2,280	43%
Germany	4,314	6,077	41%	1,876	2,206	18%
Spain	4,462	6,257	40%	3,200	3,475	9%
Italy	9,839	11,259	14%	3,039	3,159	4%

* High Tier pricing model includes Smartphones with monthly subscription fee of over £35 in UK and over €50 in France, Germany, Spain and Italy. Some respondents do not disclose tariff information

“Smartphones are generally seen as luxury devices that come with big price tags and high monthly tariffs, yet the largest segment of the market and the one demonstrating greatest momentum is actually the low to mid tier,” says Alistair Hill, senior mobile analyst at comScore. “The growth in these tiers suggests that as smartphones become more affordable to the majority of European consumers, their proliferation will increase considerably and lead to a surge in mobile content and data consumption. Such market dynamics offer substantial opportunity for different players in the mobile ecosystem -- from operators and manufacturers to publishers and advertisers --- and underscore the importance of competing for customers now to engender long-term loyalty.” Visit comScore's press room for complete research findings