• by Mark Walsh  @markfwal, July 29, 2011

Mobile shopping activity is up strongly across Europe, especially in the U.K., but is still limited to a minority of mobile subscribers. As of May, the number of people in the five largest European markets (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K.), accessing retail sites on their devices increased 37% in the last year to 13.5 million, according to new comScore data.

That amounts to 5.8% of all mobile users, not much below the 7.7% of U.S. users. Growth in the U.K. was more than triple the European average, with traffic to mobile retail sites up 118%. Overall, 9.2% of British mobile users are using their handsets to browse retail sites.

As in the U.S., rising adoption of smartphones is playing a msjor role in boosting mobile shopping. Among European smartphone users overall, the number of retail site visitors grew 80%, and in the U.K., 163%. Smartphone penetration in Europe stands at 36%, just above the 33% level in the U.S.

"Over the past year, online retailers enjoyed strong growth in visitation from mobile devices in Europe, largely driven by the acceleration in smartphone ownership," said Jeremy Copp, comScore Europe vice president for mobile.

He added that the trend could be a double-edged sword for retailers. It represents a new channel for driving sales, but also allows consumers to easily compare prices from competing businesses while shopping in-store.

In addition to retail sites, comScore found similar traffic gains for auction and shopping guide sites. The number of mobile users going to auction sites was up 36%, while those accessing guide sites increased 31%. That adds up to 6.3% and 5.1%, respectively, of all mobile users. Among smartphone users, traffic to auction and shopping guide sites jumped 76% and 72%, respectively.

Germany was second to the U.K. in traffic growth across each type of mobile shopping site, with increases of roughly 45% among all mobile users, and about 100% for smartphone owners. Growth on the smartphone side was also strong in France, ranging from 51% to 86% across retail, auction and guide sites.

The comScore study found mobile browsers rather than apps were generally the method of choice for mobile shopping. The exception was the U.K., where the proportion of smartphone owners using apps to access auction sites (11.6%) was higher than the 10% using browsers.

Browser use was more pronounced in France, Italy and Spain, with apps used by less than 3% of smartphone users. Germany had a roughly even split between browser and app users. Given the overall browser preference, comScore's Copp advised that retailers expanding to mobile should first look to develop a mobile-optimized site.

Among other mobile content activities, text messaging is by far the most popular in Europe, with about 82% texting. About 31% used an application and a browser, 26% listened to music, 20.7% accessed a social networking site or blog, and 26% played games. Comparable figures are typically a bit higher among U.S. mobile users, except for text messaging, at 68%.