• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, February 18, 2015

Consumers feel much more comfortable these days making purchases on their smartphones. But slow-loading Web pages and apps, inadequate security, troubling navigation, and purchases that require too many clicks continue to stifle progress, per a recent study.

When it came to determining what it would take to make more purchases from a mobile device, consumers had preferences based on the device, per the Mobile Shopper Survey that Fluent will release later this week.

Roughly 30% of respondents across devices said increasing security would encourage them to shop more from their phones -- 26.7% on Android, and 21.5% on iOS.

Some 17.6% of Android users want to see faster-loading pages, 9.7% would like to see easier navigation and 15.8% would like one-click purchases. On iOS smartphones, 19.7% want to see pages load faster, 12.5% want easier navigation and 17.7% want one-click purchase options.

Fluent conducted the survey between Jan. 16 and 18, 2015 among 5,269 adults ages 18 and older to discover how they used their smartphones during the past year and whether they have embraced shopping on smartphones.

More than half of consumers shopped on their smartphones in 2014 -- about 50% of Android users and 60% of iPhone users. When it comes to frequency of purchases, nearly 20% of iPhone users said they made at least seven purchases on their mobile phones during the last year, compared to just a little over 10% of Android users, per a survey.

iPhone and Android users were divided when making purchases on their smartphones through mobile apps or mobile Web sites. Some 52.2% of Android users prefer to make purchases on Web sites vs. 47.8% on apps, and about 49.7% of iOS users prefer Web sites vs. 50.3% on apps.

Among respondents earning $75,000 or less in annual income, 53% said they have Androids, compared with 30.4% on iPhones. The remainder selected "other," such as BlackBerrys and Windows devices. Survey respondents earning more than $75,000 annually were almost evenly split between Android and iPhone.

Not surprisingly, email is the most popular mobile app, especially for females. Overall, 28% of survey respondents listed email as their primary mobile phone activity, though women had a higher percentage of email use than men, 34.4% vs. 21.2%, respectively.

The next most popular activities were gaming and Web surfing, 12.5% for women vs. 33.6% for men.

Gaming on mobile phones seems to attract players age 65 and older. In fact, that age group topped the list with 33.6%; followed by 18- to-24-year-olds at 25.8%; 25- to-44-year-olds, 21.6%; and 45- to-64-year-olds, 13.1%.

Voice services also scored slightly higher for women than men, 13.9% vs. 13.6%, respectively.

When it came to activities, social was the least used app, about 2.5% for each Android and iOS. Shopping also scored low in terms of activity, with about 4% for Android and 4.1% for iOS.