How Smartphones Are Changing Consumers’ Daily Routines Around The Globe

New from Nielsen.

Smartphones are beginning to transform how we engage in our everyday lives. Only a few years ago, they were still the minority of mobile phones around the globe, but already they’re beginning to transform how we engage in our everyday lives. Today, they have a much more dominant presence.
Not only is smartphone penetration growing, with over two-thirds (67%) of mobile subscribers in the U.S. owning smartphones in Q4 2013, but consumer usage of phones is rapidly shifting toward increased screen time with entertainment and social media.
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But it’s not just smartphone penetration that’s growing.
Consumers are also spending more time using them, as time spent using smartphones now exceeds Web usage on computers in the U.S., U.K. and Italy. Americans spent 34 hours using smartphone apps and on the mobile Web in December 2013, up six hours from December 2012. Britons spent a whopping 41 hours using their smartphones during December 2013. And Italians used their smartphones about twice as long (37 hours) as they spent on the Web via their PCs (18 hours) in December.
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To be sure, traditional phone functions are still important, with smartphone time split between text messages (9% of total smartphone time), the phone dialer (3%), and address books (2%) among U.S. Android users. In Italy and Japan usage of traditional phone functions make up even smaller shares of Android user’s time, as users in Japan spend more time using instant messenger apps (7% total smartphone time) than text messaging (<1%), while Italian smartphone owners spend a quarter of their smartphone time (26%) engaged with social networking apps.

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