Smartphone take-up

Smartphone take-up increased from 51% to 61% in the year to Q1 2014. Ofcom research shows an increase across all age groups and socio-economic groups.

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smartphone uptake

SMS volume

sms sent 

Social network mobile audiences

The largest year-on-year increase in visitors was in the Facebook mobile audience, from 19m to 21.1m in April 2014 (an 11% increase).

Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn all added 0.5m to their mobile audience in the past year, growth of 6.3%, 19.2% and 20.8% respectively.

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social on mobile

Online retailer mobile unique audience 

The number of visitors to the most popular online retailers on mobile platforms have increased year on year.

Although eBay had the largest audience in March 2014 (4.9m) compared to Amazon (4.6m), the Christmas period for Amazon took its mobile audience to a peak of 5.8m.

Argos and Tesco have had year-on-year growth of 34% and 19% respectively, and peaked at 2.8 and 2.5m in December 2013.

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mobile retail traffic 

Pulbic places where WiFi is used

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places where wifi accessed 

Devices used to connect to WiFi 

Connection to WiFi outside the home was most commonly done using a smartphone, with 23% of WiFi users using a smartphone to connect to WiFi abroad, 15% while travelling, 12% in a public place and 11% at work or a place of study.

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devices accessing wifi

Activities WiFi is used for

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activities on wifi

WiFi access by age and socio-economic group 

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wifi access locations

4G coverage by network

An estimated six million 4G mobile subscriptions existed in the UK at the end of March 2014, equivalent to approximately 8% of all active mobile subscriptions.

This represents a significant increase compared to a year ago when EE (the only UK 4G provider at that time) announced it had 318,000 4G subscriptions (less than 0.5% of all UK mobile subscriptions).

4g network coverage

4G use

The four UK mobile network operators have suggested that consumers with 4G subscriptions tend to use more data than 3G users (Telefonica suggests its UK 4G subscriptions consumed twice as much data as its 3G subscriptions).

use of 4g 

Once you’re done with the Ofcom report check out the Internet Statistics Compendium for more online marketing figures and charts.