Research and Markets: Europe M-Commerce Snapshot 2014

Western European countries stand high in global ranking in smartphone and tablet penetration. Moreover, of the developed countries worldwide, Sweden and the UK stand next to Asian-Pacific and North American countries regarding mobile shopper penetration. In the global ranking of emerging markets, Russia and Turkey each are in the top five; Russia by smartphone penetration and Turkey by mobile shopper penetration on smartphone owners.

In Central Europe, Germany leads in penetration of smartphone/tablet owners who shop on mobile at least once a week. M-Commerce sales in Germany reached over 10% of the total online retail sales in 2013. In Austria, over a third of online shoppers made purchases via mobile at least once.

The United Kingdom leads the Western Europe region in the share of mobile retail on total B2C E-Commerce sales, with sales from tablets growing faster than sales from smartphones. In France, over a quarter of online shoppers planned to purchase from mobile devices in 2014, while in the Netherlands over 2 million people already engage in mobile shopping. The number of visitors from smartphones to mobile retail websites and applications is one of the fastest growing categories in the mobile web in Italy. In Spain, men are slightly more involved in mobile shopping than women.

In Eastern Europe, a growing share of the 143 million population of Russia is accessing the mobile Internet and mobile shopping is developing. Around a third of mobile Internet users in Russia purchase products from online shops via their devices. In the Czech Republic, over 10% of mobile users have bought goods and services using a mobile device. This percentage is higher among mobile shoppers in Poland, where consumers are also actively using mobile devices to compare prices and check product availability. In Turkey, where mobile Internet already accounts for the largest share of Internet subscriptions, a significant double-digit share of smartphone owners shops via mobile.

Looking at the activity of major players in mobile shopping, Germany-based multi-channel mass merchant Otto Group adopted a new mobile initiative in early 2014, with the aim of generating 50% of online traffic to all its brands through mobile devices. German online clothing retailer Zalando began an upgrade of its mobile application for use in international markets. UK-based fashion online retailer ASOS generated almost a third of its website traffic from mobile devices. In Russia, online retailers such as Ozon see growing traffic from mobile, while online clothing retailers such as Lamoda and KupiVIP have launched mobile applications.