In the United Kingdom, the average 2013 spent over mobile commerce was £199.
Different mcommerce trends have become quite commonplace in the United Kingdom with four out of every ten smartphone owners having made a direct purchase through their smartphones and one in six have said that they have taken part in showrooming.
Among shoppers in the United Kingdom, 55 percent have used their mobile devices in store.
While in store, mcommerce activity often consisted of price comparisons, online. This was the case among 54 percent of the people who used their mobile devices while in brick and mortar shops. Another 41 percent had taken pictures so that they would be able to view them in the future. Forty six percent would research the items that they were seeing live in the store. One in every six were “showrooming”, which involves checking out an item in a store in person, but then using the smartphone or tablet to find a better price for it online and purchase it there, instead.
This mcommerce data was based on a survey of 1,000 owners of smartphones in the United Kingdom.
The research was published in a report called “’Agile Consumer 2013”. It was conducted by Cheil Worldwide. It also determined that half of all users of smartphones and tablets had shopping in mind when they purchased their mobile devices.
According to Simon Hathaway, the president of shopper marketing and retail operations at Cheil Worldwide, “The smartphone has become a key element of how we shop, and all evidence points to it having been a bumper post-Christmas sales period for m-commerce.” He added that there has been a near doubling in the amount of time that is spent purchasing products and services over smartphones over the last five years.
Hathaway also stated that even when the phone is not being used for direct mcommerce purchases, it is still a part of the buying process as consumers use it to compare, research, and seek the opinions of others. This, he said, is changing the retail experience entirely “as we become smartphone-focused shoppers – or what we’re calling ‘Agile Consumers’.”
The first B747-8 planes have now been delivered with the in flight AeroMobile service.
Boeing has now delivered its very first B747-8 aircraft that will be completely line fitted with the in flight AeroMobile mobile technology service that will then be expanded across many more.
This first craft has been delivered to Lufthansa, a German carrier which seeks to expand the service.
Lufthansa has stated that it will be rolling out the mobile technology throughout all of its long haul fleet before the end of this year. Aside from the B747-8 model aircraft, there will be another model from Boeing that has also already received its clearance for the line fit of AeroMobile. This will be the B777-300ER. Among the customers for that aircraft are Singapore Airlines, Etihad Airways, and Thai Airways.
The AeroMobile mobile technology is based in the United Kingdom and allows for cell phone use.
The tech makes it possible for passengers on the fitted aircraft to be able to use their smartphones to be able to make calls, send texts, and surf the web while they are on a flight. AeroMobile has established roaming agreements with over 240 wireless operators that will then pass the costs onward to their own subscribers.
According to Kevin Rogers, the chief executive at AeroMobile, “Consumers expect to be connected 24/7 and being up in the air is no longer an exception.” Clearly, it is the intention of these airlines to be able to provide a service that allows them to continue to meet those expectations so that they can provide consumers with the experience that they want.
Rogers went on to explain that last year, this mobile technology service observed an increase of nearly 80 percent in the number of passengers who were using their smartphones and mobile devices while they were onboard. Within that same span of time, there was also ten times more data usage than there had been the previous year, and there was a 50 percent rise in the number of text messages that were sent and received. Clearly consumers expect to be able to communicate regardless of whether they are in the air or on the ground.
