The mobile consumer landscape is just as fragmented as the rest of the industry, according to The Mobile Consumer Report from Nielsen looking at 10 different countries.

In the UK, Australia and South Korea, many consumers are unlikely to be happy with receiving ads, while people in India, Brazil and China are much more receptive. India, Brazil and Russia are still dominated by feature phones and have less advanced infrastructure, which has an impact on the types of services they can access. 70 per cent of Indian smartphone owners see mobile ads once a week or less.

In South Korea and China, 43 per cent of smartphone owners use their device for mobile shopping. In Turkey it is only 3 per cent. The US is the only country to have a majority of people who use a shopping or retail app at least once a month. Top smartphone shopping activities across the countries surveyed include browsing products, price comparison and reading product reviews. US smartphone owners are the most likely to use their device for in-store price comparison, using coupons and purchasing products.

No to NFC and QR codes?

Text messaging, web browsing, social networking and apps are the most popular activities across all countries, while the mobile wallet, including NFC, is the least popular, followed by QR code scanning. Chinese consumers are the most concerned about having a wide choice of apps available to download. They are joined by American smartphone owners as the heaviest app users. Games are the most popular type of app in China, Australia, Italy and Brazil. 85 per cent of American smartphone owners are regular users of social media.

Nielsen managing director of digital in Europe, David Gosen, said: “Smartphone penetration is rising dramatically and this is changing the relationship between consumers and brands. But patterns of behaviour are very different from one country to another, and this is impacting how brands and carriers need to develop their plans around mobile advertising and mobile shopping. A strategy that works with consumers in one market, won’t necessarily work in another.”

The report covers mobile consumers in Australia, Brazil, China, India, Italy, South Korea, Russia, Turkey the UK and US.