Year-on-year growth of m-commerce Spain 2017 by device type

In an age when almost everybody has a cell phone, it comes as no surprise that online purchases are shifting towards more mobile platforms. Smartphones featured the sharpest growth in mobile commerce in Spain during 2017 compared to previous years, with an increase of nearly 30 percent. However, the popularity of tablets and computers to make online purchases decreased in 2017, with a negative growth of 5 percent and 13 percent respectively relative to previous years.

Spain: Android vs. iOS

Based on the latest studies, we could probably assume most of the online purchases made through cell phones in Spain were performed via Android devices. The predominance of Android smartphones over iOS in Spain is indisputable – the Google-developed operating system held approximately 90 percent of the total market share during the period in consideration. Apple’s iOS peaked in January 2017 with 13 percent of the total share, although the mobile system popularity dwindled in the subsequent months and took up approximately 9 percent of the market by the beginning of 2019. This trend can vary significantly across countries – the popularity of iOS devices in United Kingdom, for instance, was greater than that of Android for a long while, although the Google system has gained widespread acceptance among the British population in the recent years.

Huawei: Spain’s favorite brand

The Huawei Honor P8 Lite topped the list of best-selling smartphones in Spain in 2017. The Chinese smartphone and wireless technology company was blacklisted in the United States upon Trump administration’s decision to ban American companies from working with Huawei and any of its products. The popularity of this Chinese manufacturer in the U.S. is reportedly much lower than in other European countries, according to the latest surveys. Huawei is in contrast one of the most popular smartphone manufacturers in Spain, with nearly 20 percent of Spanish users owning a Huawei smartphone as their day-to-day mobile device in 2019.