Google: Asia is the only true “mobile-first” region

There are no countries outside of Asia where smartphone penetration is higher than PC penetration, according to new research from Google’s Consumer Barometer.

“Asia has gone mobile-first. This is no longer a future trend, on some dim and distant horizon—it’s already happened in the past year,” writes Google’s official Asia Pacific Blog.

The two countries with the highest smartphone penetration in the world are from Asia – Singapore (85 percent) and South Korea (80 percent). Asian countries also have the highest rate of internet users who go online exclusively using a smartphone. Malaysia scores the highest in this regard, with 35 percent of consumers accessing the internet only through their mobile devices.

Google’s Consumer Barometer covers 46 countries. Here’s a few more Asia-specific stats gleaned from the research:

• Japan and South Korea are the two countries with the highest frequency of internet usage in the world.


• South Koreans are the biggest online shoppers, with the most people that made their last clothing and footwear purchase online (75 percent), the most people researching purchases online (83 percent), and the most use of a smartphone to make a purchase (43 percent).


• China had the highest rate of people who viewed online video while at work or in school.

It’s also interesting to note one data point where Asian countries didn’t make it on the podium. Only China made it into the top 10 countries for most social media usage, which was led by Turkey. So despite what you might have heard about how much East Asians love Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, Google’s data says otherwise.

See: Report: 64% of Chinese Android users choose domestic smartphones

Google: Asia is the only true “mobile-first” region