Stats and Facts

Customer Numbers

Mobile telecommunications have been available in the UK since the mid 1980s, they are now ubiquitous: there are now 81.6 million mobile subscriptions in the UK. 

In 2000, just half of UK adults said that they had a mobile phone – that figure now stands at 92%.

Over 5.1 million customers now access mobile broadband services via a laptop and dongle, and 39% of UK adults use their mobile phones for internet access. Mobile telephony is vital for the UK’s economic competitiveness, and in promoting social inclusion.

The average UK consumer sends 50 texts a week, with over 150 billion text messages sent in 2011.

In 2011, 32.6 million subscribers accessed the internet via their mobile phones, an increase of nearly 10 million since 2010. This increase has been driven largely by more subscribers choosing to own a smartphone.

For the first time, the volume of calls from mobile phones exceeded the volume of calls from fixed phones in 2011, comprising 52% of total voice calls.

Overall satisfaction with mobile phone service at the end Q1 2012 was 95%, having been at 87% in 2000. 

Mobile Network Coverage

At the end of 2011 15% of adults live in a home that has a mobile phone but no landline. Ofcom research suggests that a third of 16-24 year olds (33%) lived in a household that used mobiles as its sole form of telephony in Q1 2012, more than twice the 15% average recorded across all adults during the period. Similarly, the proportion of respondents living in mobile-only homes was higher among the DE socio-economic group than among other grades, with a quarter (25%) of DE homes being mobile-only.

99.7% of UK premises (homes and offices) had outdoor 2G mobile coverage from at least one operator in May 2012. Levels of coverage are influenced by population densities and by topography. As a result, 99.8% of England’s premises were covered by 2G mobile from at least one operator, in contrast to 99.2% in Wales, 99.2% in Scotland and 98.7% in Northern Ireland. The comparable figures for 3G coverage were lower: 99.1% of UK premises; 99.7% in England, 97.0% in Scotland, 97.6% in Wales and 88.3% in Northern Ireland had 3G mobile coverage outside the premise from at least one operator.

Mobile phone take up in the UK was 92%. There is modest variation between nations, with highest take-up (93%) in England and Northern Ireland, Wales 92% and the lowest take-up in Scotland (85%).

Use Of Mobile Devices

For the first time, the volume of calls from mobile phones exceeded the volume of calls from fixed phones in 2011, comprising 52% of total voice calls. This was largely the result of a fall of 10.0% in the volume of calls from fixed phones from 2010 to 2011, following four previous years of decline.

But for the first time, mobile call volumes fell too - by a much smaller 1.1%. In previous years, declining fixed call volumes have largely been attributed to the substitution of mobile telephony for fixed telephony. However, it now appears that new factors have become important.

For example, some consumers may have swapped telephone calls for text messaging, instant messaging and social networking, which have all increased in use. The increased use of text messaging has been driven partly by tariff bundles that now often include unlimited, or large volumes, of SMS. The widespread use of some types of handsets, such as the BlackBerry, have also contributed to frequent instant messaging, while the prevalence of smartphones has made it easier to use social networking tools on the move.

In 2011 the average time spent per person making and receiving mobile voice calls was 5 hours per month, less than the 13.7 hours total for average use of mobile messaging, mobile internet services and accessing email and member communities on a PC/laptop.

The proportion of mobile users who accessed websites, downloaded apps, used email and used instant messaging services on their handsets all increased in the year to Q1 2012, largely as a result of growth in smartphone take-up. The largest increases were in the use of mobiles to browse the internet and access email, with the proportion of mobile users doing each activity increasing by 12 percentage points, to 40% and 29% respectively.

Three per cent of UK households now rely on a smartphone as their sole means of home internet access.

Tablet ownership has risen rapidly in the past year, from 2% of UK households in Q1 2011 to 11% in Q1 2012. Tablet computers are used on a regular basis. Seventy-four per cent claim to go online on their tablet every day, or most days.

One in ten (10%) UK adults now have an e-reader; up from 3% in 2011. Forty-one per cent claim to read more since owning an e-reader. This trend is most prominent among 18-34 year-olds - 53% claim they have read more since having an e-reader.

Source (unless otherwise indicated): 'The Communications Market 2012', Ofcom http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr12/CMR_UK_2012.pdf