Broadband News
News, views and analysis
UK leads Europe in mobile and laptop (social) web access
02 Dec 2010 | 17.00 Europe/London
The UK is leading Europe in demand for portable and mobile internet services, according to research from Ofcom, which looked at the internet in several key European markets, as well as Japan and the USA.
Although the Netherlands leads Europe with 85% of households enjoying broadband, compared to the UK’s 70%, Britons are the most likely to be found consuming web content away from their desktop PC.
In fact, the UK is the only country among those researched where the laptop is the most popular platform for surfing at home, some 69% of users access the web via a laptop. Similarly, the UK has seen the biggest year on year growth, of 70%, in smartphone penetration.
It may come as little surprise then that the UK leads the countries surveyed in mobile social media, with one in four web users access social media sites from their smartphone – this rises to just under one in two for 18 to 24 year olds.
Britain also leads Europe in online shopping with the average shopper making 19 purchases per year worth just over a thousand pounds, double that of Germany where an average of 9 items are bought for nearly six hundred pounds.
However, although the UK may lead in consuming the web on laptops and mobile devices, it shares the same fate as the rest of the European countries where just less than 2% of households have a ‘superfast’ connection to the Net. This compares particularly badly to Japan where on in three houses are connected to the web at ‘superfast’ speed.
The UK was bottom of the VoIP league, though, with just one in twenty households using voice over IP services, compared to one in four in France of the Netherlands. This is believed to be because broadband connections in Britain are linked to a phone line whereas in other countries ADSL can be bought 'naked' as a product on its own which is not tied to a customer also renting a telephone line.
Although the Netherlands leads Europe with 85% of households enjoying broadband, compared to the UK’s 70%, Britons are the most likely to be found consuming web content away from their desktop PC.
In fact, the UK is the only country among those researched where the laptop is the most popular platform for surfing at home, some 69% of users access the web via a laptop. Similarly, the UK has seen the biggest year on year growth, of 70%, in smartphone penetration.
It may come as little surprise then that the UK leads the countries surveyed in mobile social media, with one in four web users access social media sites from their smartphone – this rises to just under one in two for 18 to 24 year olds.
Britain also leads Europe in online shopping with the average shopper making 19 purchases per year worth just over a thousand pounds, double that of Germany where an average of 9 items are bought for nearly six hundred pounds.
However, although the UK may lead in consuming the web on laptops and mobile devices, it shares the same fate as the rest of the European countries where just less than 2% of households have a ‘superfast’ connection to the Net. This compares particularly badly to Japan where on in three houses are connected to the web at ‘superfast’ speed.
The UK was bottom of the VoIP league, though, with just one in twenty households using voice over IP services, compared to one in four in France of the Netherlands. This is believed to be because broadband connections in Britain are linked to a phone line whereas in other countries ADSL can be bought 'naked' as a product on its own which is not tied to a customer also renting a telephone line.