The audience for mobile social networking in the EU 5 countries – France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK – grew by 44 per cent in the last year to 55.1m users, according to the latest data from comScore’s mobiLens service.

“Over the past year we have seen social networking use grow rapidly among mobile users across Europe, driven largely by the growth in smartphone adoption,” says Jeremy Copp, comScore Europe vice president for Mobile. “As social networks continue to invest in improving the user experience on mobile devices and tablets, it will be interesting to see how social behaviours on the mobile platform further evolve.”

The figure of 55.1m EU5 mobile users who accessed social networking sites or blogs on their mobile device in September 2011 represents 23.5 per cent of the total mobile audience, and is 44 per cent higher than the September 2010 figure of 38.3m users. 46.8 per cent of the 55.1m users accessed social networking sites on a daily basis.

The largest mobile audience belonged to Facebook – used by 39m (71 per cent) – but Twitter (8.6m, increasing by 115 per cent) and LinkedIn (2.2m, jumping 134 per cent) both more than doubled their number of users over the period.

44.3 per cent of mobile social networking users reported reading posts from organizations, brands or events, while 26.7 per cent reported receiving coupons, offers or deals on their phones. Finally, the survey showed that while most mobile users (31.3m) accessed social networking sites via a browser, the number of people using mobile apps doubled, to a total of 24.2m.