The majority (93%) of iPhone owners in the United Kingdom accessed mobile media in January, according to comScore.
Mobile email is used by 75 percent of British iPhone owners, making it the most popular type of mobile content consumed on the device.
“Consumers are clearly embracing the iPhone’s touch screen keyboard,” said Alistair Hill, analyst, comScore. “The penetration of e-mail usage on the iPhone is more than double that of the smartphone category as a whole.”
“Over the past several quarters, the UK smartphone market has been dominated by the N95, which lacks a QWERTY keyboard. As a result, we see smartphone users favor using their device for music and photo messaging, two activities for which these Nokia devices are particularly well-suited, more than e-mail.”
Nearly 80 percent of UK iPhone owners accessed news and other information through a browser, four times the rate for all mobile phone users. Apple’s App store is also very popular among iPhone owners, with 55.6 percent accessing news and information via a downloaded application, compared with 22.1 percent of smartphone owners and 6.3 percent of all mobile phone users.
The iPhone has also helped the mobile games sector, with 37 percent of iPhone owners downloading a game and 18.6 percent purchasing one. Only 5.6 percent of smartphone owners and 2.7 percent of mobile phone users bought a game in January.
Broken down by demographics, 75 percent of iPhone owners are male, mostly between the ages of 18-44. Smartphone ownership also generally slants male in the UK, with males making up 65 percent of the audience.
“The iPhone is indeed an early adopter phenomenon in the United Kingdom,” said Hill. “While the device’s ease of use is certainly contributing to the lift we see in mobile media consumption, the fact that the device requires a subscription package that includes an unlimited data plan is also a contributing factor.”
“However, it is also important to note that while nearly all iPhone owners are consuming mobile media, the device is in the hands of only two percent of mobile phone users in the UK.”
