• by Chuck Martin , Staff Writer, July 2, 2014

Anyone who regularly travels outside the U.S. is likely aware of the growing significance of mobile on shopping activities everywhere.

While PC online shoppers in the U.S. are among the top countries by percentage, those buying via smartphone and laptop actually lag other countries, based on new research.

For desktop online purchasing around the world over the last month, the highest percentage countries were China, Germany, United Kingdom, South Korea, Brazil and then the United States, according to the latest GlobalWebIndex (GWI) quarterly report

The study found that 66% of internet users are now buying products online monthly, a 52% increase since 2011, and projected to reach 1.5 billion people within four years.

The majority (57%) of online purchasing is still happening on the desktop/laptop, followed by phones (26%) and tablets (12%).

This is counter to numerous studies that show tablet purchases higher than smartphones, but those studies typically are U.S.-only.

GWI Commerce annually interviews 170,000 internet users across 32 countries. The quarterly study uses a sample size of more than 40,000 internet users between 16 and 64 years.

The research showed that during the last month, internet users in China led the percentage of people buying products via mobile phones and that percentage is higher than the U.S. in 19 countries. Here’s the by-country order of online purchasing via phone:

• China
• Hong Kong
• Turkey
• Thailand
• Taiwan
• South Korea
• Indonesia
• India
• Brazil
• Germany
• Mexico
• Singapore
• UAE
• Malaysia
• Spain
• Sweden
• Ireland
• Saudi Arabia
• Italy
• U.S.

However, when it comes to products being bought on tablets, the U.S. is in the top 10, though at the end:

• China
• Hong Kong
• Mexico
• Turkey
• Ireland
• Thailand
• U.K.
• Singapore
• Indonesia
• U.S.

The country with the least online purchasing by either phone or tablet is Japan.

An interesting tidbit is that almost half of internet users globally have visited Amazon within the last month and more people from China visit Amazon each month than those from the U.S.

Mobile commerce continues to be a global phenomenon.

All the major issues relating to mobile commerce will be discussed at the MediaPost OMMA mCommerce conference in New York on Aug. 7. Hope to see you there. Check out the agenda.