Europeans Buy More Smartphones than Americans

Posted By: Ryan on Thursday, January 18, 2007 11:12:16 AM

Nordic Wireless Watch is reporting that European consumers have been faster to adopt ‘smart’ mobile phones than their American counterparts, according to Telephia. In Q3 2006, smartphone penetration in Western Europe was 8.8 percent among recent device buyers; more than double that of the U.S. which was 3.8 percent. Via MobilityBeat.

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That's because

mikecane @ 1/18/2007 2:17:02 PM #

They are also smarter.

OK then, better educated.

Well, that table certainly explains PALM's words

SeldomVisitor @ 1/18/2007 2:26:20 PM #

...about European results so far with the Vodafone TREO:

The table:

== Penetration of Smartphones in Europe and the U.S.
== Among Recent Phone Buyers
== Western Europe * 8.80 %
== Italy 19.20 %
== Spain 9.50 %
== UK 7.50 %
== Sweden 3.60 %
== Germany 4.90 %
== France 3.50 %
== USA 3.80 %

---------------

Colligan's comments:

== "...Jeff Walkenhorst - Bank of America Securities
==
== Thank you so much. I am wondering if you could maybe dive a little
== bit deeper into what is happening in Europe. When you look at these
== countries, these Vodafone operating carriers that you brought on board,
== which of Germany or U.K. or the others that you already signed into,
== where have you seen good strength so far, and what has the feedback been?
==
== Edward T. Colligan
==
== ...I would say the strongest countries that we have seen so far has been
== the U.K. in particular, and then Spain actually is a very strong country
== for us...
==
== ...Italy is another country where we have seen some strong success..."

(see seekingalpha for the latest transcript)

=======================

Or, in other words, PALM did in those 3 countries exactly what we should have expected for PALM to do.

Why more smart phones in Italy

philpalm @ 1/18/2007 2:47:19 PM #

Italians are cool people:
"It’s not a surprise to see Italy lead in smartphone adoption, as Italians consistently spend the most on devices and data usage as compared to the other European countries. Moreover, Italian Internet penetration is less than the UK or Germany for example and smartphone devices with advanced capabilities provide an excellent opportunity for content owners to entice Italians accessing the Web using their phone.”

And internet access is not as broadly available as the other countries....

RE: Why more smart phones in Italy

fedatoc @ 1/19/2007 6:08:52 AM #

I tend to disagree with the last comment: Italians do spend a lot on hardware and hi-tech gadgets, but they rarely use them extensively. It's more because of fashion and style rather than effectiveness. That is the reason why ugly looking hw has no success at all, while flashy and elegant design attracts scores of customers.
Moreover, flat mobile data plans are terribly expensive, Wi-Fi coverage precarious at best, meaning that the mobile data exchange produced is really limited for any smartphone. In other words if all Nokia Symbian phones are regarded as "smartphones" you will find millions of them in the hands of youths just willing to customize their own mobile, while even the easiest task, such as listening to .mp3 music, is performed on .mp3 pen drives and not on their smartphone.
I imagine that anybody who has been visiting or living in the country may confirm my statement.

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