Access social networking and instant messaging are driving demand for increased levels of mobile connectivity across the world, according to IDC’s latest survey.
In countries where the usage share of instant messaging is high, such as China (64%) and New Zealand (40%), the share of social networking tends to be low (23% and 25% respectively), and vice versa, reflecting the substitution effect of these two online activities.
Four out of 10 smartphone users today connect to the Internet daily with their handsets. This is compared to just a quarter of smartphone users a year ago, an increase of more than 60%, according to IDC’s global consumer research programme ConsumerScape 360°.
The rise is across the board. In the space of a year, the share of smartphone users who access the Internet daily with their handsets doubled in mature markets such as Australia, Japan and the US as well as in emerging markets such as Brazil, Russia and India, highlighted the survey report.
IDC Greater China vice president for End-User Research & Statistics Group Kitty Fok said South Korea had the most dramatic change, with a four-fold increase in the percentage of smartphone users who access the Internet daily. While China did not have such a big jump, two-thirds of the smartphone users there connect to the Internet daily, the highest among the 21 countries surveyed.
Latest data from IDC’s Asia/Pacific Mobile Phone Tracker showed that the growth in smartphone shipments in the first quarter of 2011 was the fastest in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) or APEJ region, compared to a year ago.
South Korea and China were among the fastest growing within the region, increasing 377% and 152% respectively from a year ago.
