Australia has one of the world’s highest levels of mobile penetration and smart phone usage – recent research by Google found that 25% of Australian consumers have used their smart phone to research or purchase a product.
eMarketingConnected’s research found that 15% of all retailers have a mobile website – this compares to 46% in the U.S. where mobile retail websites have grown from 14% in the last year (source – RIS News 2011 Cross Channel Retail Study). This puts Australia a year behind the U.S., assuming a large number of major retailers will take the plunge and build a mobile website in the next year. Dick Smith is one major Australian retailer that has recently launched a mobile website to meet the growing demand (read the full Dick Smith mobile website review here).
Less than half of retailers in all sectors have a mobile website, there’s also a large variation between sectors with multi-retailers leading the way, closely followed by the electrical retailers. The remaining sectors have a low percentage of retailers providing a mobile website.