29 per cent of smartphone owners use their phone for shopping-related activities, according to Nielsen’s US Digital Consumer Report. Top activities include in-store price comparisons (38 per cent of mobile shoppers), browsing products (38 per cent) and reading product reviews (32 per cent).
Consumers in the US downloaded twice as many shopping and retail apps than they did in 2010 – and although only nine per cent used their phone to pay in-store, 71 per cent said they would be interested in doing so.
The Digital Consumer Report also takes a wider view of the digital landscape in US. It found that 44 per cent of US mobile users own a smartphone, as of October 2011. In 2006, that number was just 3.2 per cent. 31.4m people in the US access the Internet through their mobile phone, according to the report, and the majority of mobile phone time (64 per cent) was consumed by app usage.