Canada has joined seven other countries, including the U.S., U.K., France and Japan, in offering comScore’s mobile measurement service – comScore MobiLens.
According to comScore, the service offers advertisers and agencies a “comprehensive” picture of the mobile market by providing detailed information on mobile consumers’ demographics, behaviours and device attributes.
“MobiLens provides valuable and actionable reporting capabilities, essential for establishing mobile as a legitimate advertising medium,” said comScore president Bryan Segal in a release. “Advertisers, publishers, advertising agencies and mobile carriers alike can now gain visibility into Canada’s mobile audience and optimize their sales and marketing strategies for this rapidly developing market.”
According to MobiLens data for March 2011, there are now 6.6 million smartphone users in Canada, comprising approximately 33% of the country’s mobile subscribers. That puts Canada slightly ahead of the U.S. (32.2%), but well behind global leader the United Kingdom (40.8%) and other countries including Spain (40.2%) and Italy (38.3%).
The majority of Canadian smartphone users (42%) use RIM devices, followed by Apple (31%), Google (12.2%), Symbian (6.4%) and Microsoft (5.1%).
The data also indicated that 40.6% of mobile users age 13+ in Canada used an app on their device, while 32.7% used a mobile browser. Texting and taking photos were the most popular activities on mobile devices, used by 64.5% and 48.9% of subscribers respectively. In addition, 29.7% of mobile subscribers used a mobile device to access their personal or work e-mail.
Other activities on smartphones included playing games (27.3%), accessing a social networking site or blog (25.4%) and accessing weather information (22.9%).
