Smartphones Key to UK eCommerce Growth, says Mubaloo

Smartphones are key to the growth of e-commerce. So says UK b2b app developer, Mubaloo.

“£60bn a year comes from online retail, and this is bound to increase if you factor in smartphone technology,” says Mark Mason, Mubaloo CEO and former marketing consultant to Microsoft and Google. “More and more companies are turning to smartphone apps for advertising, marketing, brand promotion and – crucially – sales. The key factor here is that the UK has more smartphones per head of population than any other country in the world. With IPTVs coming in and a whole new raft of Android phones for the Christmas market, it won’t be long before apps are replacing catalogues, websites and shops.”

A survey commissioned by Google has found that the internet is responsible for 7.2 per cent of the UK economy and is valued at £100bn. The internet’s contribution to GDP is set to grow by about 10 per cent annually, reaching 10 per cent of GDP by 2015. According to the Boston Consulting Group, who undertook the survey, the UK is the world’s leading nation for e-commerce. For every £1 spent online to import goods, £2.80 is exported.

Mubaloo notes also that the UK also has the world’s highest proliferation of smartphones, with more owned in the UK than any other EU country. Trends of growing e-commerce are likely to outstrip predicted growth which doesn’t account for the massive impact on sales that smartphones will have.

Mubaloo currently employs 40 staff in offices in Bristol, London and New York. It is opening new offices in Berlin this month, with another planned in Helsinki.