Nokia and Apple are leading European smartphone usage

EUROPEANS ARE embracing smartphone technology, according to analysts at IDG, and are mostly using Nokia and Apple handsets.

The analysts looked at around 14,000 users in 16 countries and while the inclusion of Nokia might be surprising in the European figures the US results make a lot more sense.

In the US, Apple and Blackberry devices dominate business use and Apple and Samsung see the most personal use.

Overall, more than two-thirds of respondents said that they have a smartphone for either work or personal use. Unsurprisingly, unless perhaps you work at IDG, a lot of these people use their handsets to browse the internet and use mobile applications.

What might be surprising though is that GPS navigation is the most used application, moreso even than instant messaging, IDG said, and more than Angry Birds. In the UK 41 per cent of users use the mapping apps, while Finland leads the consumption pack with 77 per cent.

Application developers will be pleased to hear that the majority of users, 70 per cent, are downloading applications. Some, we are given to understand, even pay for them.

IDG found that 40 per cent of respondents also own a tablet, and 67 per cent plan to pick one up in the next twelve months. According to IDG, Apple "owns" this part of the market with a 90 per cent share.

Some more research, this time from Delloite, also found that mapping and location applications were the most popular.

Although forty five per cent of global consumers are downloading at least one application a week, very few applications are getting download figures in the high numbers. Under one per cent of applications, at least those published by consumer or healthcare brands, have been downloaded more than a million times.

Deloitte said that developers were likely to struggle to make their applications stand out, adding that a huge number of available downloads was colliding with an increasingly discerning consumer base.

However, there are some features that stand out, it explained, and according to the analysts developers would be considered wise if they focused on the following features; portability, accelerometer, sophisticated touch screen use, location-based services and the camera.

The analysts added that developers face another challenge, which is deciding on which platforms to develop for. It explained that developing the same applications for two platforms was 160 percent of the cost of developing for one. µ