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Tech-savvy Spaniards rank fifth in world for mobile commerce use

Emma Anderson
Emma Anderson - [email protected]
Tech-savvy Spaniards rank fifth in world for mobile commerce use
Photo: Indranil Mukherjee / AFP.

Spaniards are some of the world's top smartphone users and love buying through mobile apps, according to a new study by a Madrid startup.

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One in three electronic purchases in Spain are made through mobile devices, placing Spain as the world's fifth top country for mobile commerce, according to a study released on Tuesday by The App Date - a startup that reviews and recommends apps for the Spanish-speaking world.

Spaniards also can’t seem to get enough of their smartphones, with three out of ten saying they look at their phone every ten minutes while another 50 percent of users say their phone is what they reach for within the first five minutes of waking up.

The report revealed that gone are the days in Spain where someone mostly uses their mobile phone to make a simple call - now Spaniards spend nearly 90 percent of their time on their phones using apps.

And apps seemed to have an impact on Spaniards' consumption: the report found that people bought three times as much when shopping through apps as through a web browser.

"The rapidness and simplification of payment, the ability to do it without your wallet, and the increased confidence in security terms have made it so that more and more of us Spaniards have opted for mobile commerce," the report states.

Nearly 28 million Spaniards, out of a population of 46.7 million, are active app users. And 3.8 million apps are downloaded in Spain each day, according to the report.

These numbers perhaps aren't that surprising after a separate study last year found that Spaniards were the most tech-addicted in Europe, spending eight hours and 48 minutes a day on average using electronic devices.

Of Spanish app users, 51 percent are male, while 49 percent are female, and the largest age group is those between 25 and 34 – at 35 percent.

Madrid was the top city in terms of number of app users, followed by Barcelona and then Granada.

Among Spaniards' favourite apps are Booking.com, Groupon and TripAdvisor, but the overall most downloaded app in Spain is Whatsapp, followed by Facebook apps.

Spaniards also have a clear answer when it comes to the Apple versus Android debate: 84 percent of smartphone users have Android phones, compared to just 12 percent who are using Apple's iOS.

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