The majority of Europeans own a smartphone, making the platform a key consideration for any industry. How can retailers best leverage consumers’ consumption habits? 

An analysis of the mobile landscape taken from comScore Mobile Advisor reveals the differences in smartphone adoption in Europe, as well as the use of apps and browsers for smartphone purchases.

Key Findings:

• France and Germany lead smartphone adoption amongst the EU5 countries with over 80% of their mobile audience owning a smartphone in April 2016. Despite Italy’s relatively lower smartphone penetration, the country had one of the fastest growth rates in the past year with adoption increasing +13.4% since April 2015.
• Along with strong smartphone ownership, consumers in Europe are also frequent mobile shoppers. The UK saw more than one third of smartphone users making an online purchase in April.
• Mobile shoppers can often choose to purchase through either an app or browser, and whilst app minutes dominate mobile consumption as a whole, there were fewer purchases made on mobile apps than mobile browser in all five markets in April. Over 60% of mobile shoppers in the EU5 who purchased online, chose to do so via a mobile browser site.
• Amongst the markets, UK and Germany saw the highest incidence of purchases via app at 59.3% and 52.1%, respectively.

The ability to understand how smartphones are growing as a vital commerce channel is important for retailers to optimise the right platform experience and engage their target audience. To learn more about comScore mobile solutions including Mobile Advisor, MobiLens, Mobile Metrix, and MMX Multi-Platform, please contact comScore.

You can read the original article on the comScore website here.

Brussels, 5 July 2016 – The tech and telecom industries call for the e-Privacy Directive to be repealed. We believe that simplifying and streamlining regulation will benefit consumers by ensuring they are provided with a simple, consistent and meaningful set of rules designed to protect their personal data.

At the same time, it will encourage innovation across the digital value chain and drive new growth and social opportunities. This is critical at a time when digital companies are striving to launch new innovative services and working to build a 5G Europe.

In this context, we believe that the review process of the e-Privacy Directive offers a unique opportunity to achieve a simple, clear and horizontal approach to digital regulation. Sector-specific rules on privacy are no longer able to address the challenges of the digital age.

For this reason, we believe that Europe should fully take stock of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which creates a comprehensive set of horizontal rules ensuring high levels of data protection.

During the review of the e-Privacy directive, we believe that the EU should:

• Carefully evaluate the extent to which the e-Privacy Directive is still necessary and meaningful;
• Eliminate any provisions that are overlapping with the GDPR;
• If still considered necessary, transfer non-privacy related consumer protection provisions, to more appropriate legal instruments; the on-going review of consumer protection rules, and more specifically of the Telecoms Framework, provides opportunities for streamlining legislation;
• Align the relative timing of the e-Privacy and Telecoms Framework reviews;
• Make sure that the review of the e-Privacy Directive is fully aligned with the GDPR.

Such an approach would also be in line with the Digital Single Market Strategy and would help achieve further concrete steps in the context of the Commission’s REFIT programme.

We believe that the above-mentioned steps would maximise the consistency of the rules, increase clarity for consumers and help Europe unlock new innovation opportunities across the digital value chain.

Get the slides here.

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The following 12 associations have signed this statement:

Application Developers Alliance, Cable Europe, CCIA, COCIR, DIGITALEUROPE, ECTA, EDIMA, ETNO, EuroISPA, IAB Europe, GSMA and EPC.

The AdEx Benchmark 2015 report reveals some of the key milestones of the last ten years culminating in this year’s market value of €36.4bn surpassing the €33.3bn European TV market for the first time. With an increase of 13.0% in 2015, online advertising recorded its sixth consecutive year of double-digit growth. All 27 participating markets recorded positive growth. Twenty of these markets grew double-digit for the second year running (three markets recording 30%+ growth, a further nine showing 20%+ growth and a further eight 10%+ growth).

Top 10 Rankings – year-on-year growth

1. Ireland – 29.0%
2. Bulgaria – 22.3%
3. Poland – 21.8%
4. Slovenia – 21.6%
5. Slovakia – 20.4%
6. Sweden – 20.0%
7. Turkey – 19.7%
8. Switzerland – 18.7%
9. Croatia – 18.2%
10. Spain – 18.0%

Digital again drove the overall advertising industry, its 13.0% increase balancing a larger decline of 4.1% registered by other media to arrive at a positive 1.0% growth overall for the total advertising industry against a background of continued low GDP growth.