Only 3.7 per cent of the Spanish population has browsed the internet on their mobile phone but those consumers who have done so are spending 30 per cent more than the average Spanish mobile user. And of the operators vying for that business in Spain, Vodafone is leading the pack. The findings come from data supplied exclusively to telecoms.com from Kantar Worldpanel’s ComTech survey.

Kantar’s ComTech consumer tracking panel conducts more than two million consumer interviews across 11 key mobile markets each year, gaining insight into mobile phone behaviour, including purchasing of phones, mobile phone bills/airtime, source of purchase, phone usage and handset features.

The latest data shows that Vodafone has the highest percentage of customers using the most advanced services, consistently above the average. Seven per cent of the firm’s Spanish customers have used their phones for internet browsing and downloading and sending pictures. Eight per cent have used it to play games, while 11 percent have used their phone to make videos. Music has proven the most popular service among the carrier’s customers, with 15 per cent of them using their phone to listen to music.

Vodafone’s relative success with non-voice services is reflected in its ARPU, the ComTech survey shows. Figures for this year give Vodafone a contract ARPU of €30.23, compared to Orange on €27.70 and Telefónica (Movistar) on €28.08. Vodafone also leads the way in prepaid ARPU with €19.76 compared to €18.15 for Orange and €16.93 for Telefónica.

Vodafone is benefiting from a younger subscriber base, with 43.1 per cent of its customers in the 16 – 34 year-old age group. The average across all networks is 36.5 per cent, with Telefónica having 32.8 per cent and Orange 38.2 per cent. However, the survey data shows that, even among this age group, Vodafone enjoys a significant lead over its competitors in terms of non-voice service usage. A higher proportion of advanced handsets among Vodafone’s 16 – 34 year-old age group is a key factor in this, the survey data suggests. 69 per cent of Vodafone’s customers in this demographic have a 3G handset compared to 48 per cent for Telefónica and 59 per cent for Orange.

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Kantar Worldpanel

ComTech is the largest continuous research consumer mobile phone tracking panel of its kind in the world, conducting over 1 million interviews per year in Europe alone. The study has now been expanded to Mexico, Brazil, Japan, Australia and the US , bringing the total number of annual interviews to over 2 million. Worldpanel ComTech tracks mobile phone behaviour, including purchasing of phones, mobile phone bills/airtime, source of purchase, phone usage and handset features and delivers beyond market share tracking to understand drivers of share changes, market dynamics through consumer insight – the data included in this story is excluding enterprise sales.