U.S. Lags in Mobile Video Usage

Fewer Americans watch TV, movies than users in Japan and Europe

By George Winslow -- Broadcasting & Cable, 10/7/2010 7:37:34 PM

A major new study into mobile usage around the world that comScore is billing as the first comparative report on mobile usage in the U.S., Japan and Europe finds that American users lag behind Japanese and European users in a number of key areas, including their propensity to watch TV shows or video on a mobile device and their likelihood of browsing for content, accessing apps or downloading content.

Just 4.8% of U.S. mobile users in June of 2010 watched TV or video on a mobile phone, versus 5.4% in Europe and 22.0% in Japan, according to the comScore MobiLens report.

Japanese users were also the most connected, with 75.2% browsing, accessing applications or downloading content, compared to 43.7% in the U.S. and 38.5% in Europe.

U.S. users were also less likely to access traffic reports (8.2%) compared to 12.6% in Japan but more likely than Europeans (5.9%) and they also lagged behind in Japan in accessing weather information, with 34.1% of Japanese accessing weather, 22.3% of Americans and 13.7% of Europeans.

U.S. users led in social media, with 21.3% accessing a social networking site or blog, compared to 17.0% in Japan and 14.7% in Europe.

Europeans were the heaviest users of text messages (81.7%), followed by the U.S. (66.8%) and Japan (40.1%) and they led in games with 24.1% playing games on mobile devices compared to 22.5% of Americans and 16.3% of Japanese.

The study also found that Facebook, MySpace, YouTube and Twitter were the most popular social networking sites in the U.S. for mobile devices.