comScore has released data from its comScore MobiLens service showing that the UK had more users accessing sports content from mobile devices than the other EU5 countries (Germany, France, Spain and Italy), in April 2010, while Spain exhibited the strongest growth rate in the category. 

The European market for mobile sport access has increased 52 per cent in the past year to 25m users in April 2010. The UK had nearly 7m users, approximately 1m more than its nearest rival, Italy. The Spanish market grew by an impressive 85 per cent over the past year, more than twice the growth rate experienced by the UK (41 per cent). Germany is the second fastest-growing market in Europe (up 58 per cent) followed by Italy (53 per cent) and France (42 per cent).

The comScore analysis also found that live sports, particularly football, are a significant driver of mobile sports content consumption. In the UK, the peak usage time for viewing sports content on mobile devices is on weekends between 3pm and 6pm.

“Given that Premier League games traditionally kick off at 3pm on the weekend, we’re not surprised to see the jump in sport consumption at this time,” says comScore senior mobile analyst, Alistair Hill. “The GSMA Mobile Media Metrics data shows this granular level of mobile web usage for the UK market, supporting the hypothesis that football is a key driver of mobile sports activity.

“Incidentally, we also observed a peak in mobile sport access in June 2006, around the time of the last World Cup. With so many more smartphones and internet-enabled handsets, along with more mobile-friendly websites than ever before, we anticipate that the FIFA World Cup will drive mobile web usage to record levels in Europe.”