The proportion of Brits owning a smartphone has almost doubled in the space of 18 months. UK residents are now more likely to own such a phone than people anywhere else in Europe or the United States.
Communications regulator Ofcom found that as of August this year, 46% of Brits have a smartphone -- a classification usually loosely defined as a handset on which third party applications can be installed. That compares with just 24% in February 2010.
In a comparison with other European countries, Ofcom found the UK was leading the way: 45%of Spaniards have a smartphone, with the figure being 32% in Germany. A recent US report found 44% of Americans currently have a smartphone.
The report also found that 46 percent of people in the UK use their phone to access the web. That means that whatever number of smartphone owners don't bother with mobile surfing is matched by people who access the web on a standard mobile, albeit often at a slower speed.
Ofcom also found that mobile phone services in the UK as a whole are not only the cheapest in Europe, but have actually dropped in price over the past year, though the costs of pay-as-you-go services continue to rise.
