CPW’s European volume and revenue growth dropped in the December quarter, but this was largely due to the higher mix of prepay in the Christmas period, with underlying trends (strong contract, weak prepay) unchanged

US volume growth surged to 34% as the company continued to roll out standalone stores in malls and shopping centres, and there appears to be plenty of growth to come

Looking forward, the UK business is likely to suffer from the longer handset contracts that have been rolled out by the UK mobile operators over the last two years, but continued strength in the US is likely to more than make up for this

Smartphones are rapidly moving to become a majority of UK mobile handset sales, driving a surge in mobile internet use. Even if usage per user (currently growing) flattens out, we forecast mobile internet usage to grow from 1.8bn hours in 2010 to 7bn in 2015: 28% of total online time

This should drive the long promised growth in mobile advertising and we project UK spend, including search and display, will rise to £420 million by 2015, equivalent to 10% of PC internet search/display advertising

We expect the majority of this usage to be incremental to PC-based consumption, as users find new things to do and buy on the mobile web, driving the overall online advertising market to further growth

By 2015 we expect internet-centric smartphone penetration in the UK to reach 75% and mobile internet use to reach 28% of total time spent online. The dynamics and ecosystems of the mobile internet, and in particular the app model, will become a significant part of overall digital strategies

First seen as an interim reaction to slow networks and small screens, mobile apps have become a major new route to market for publishers and ecommerce providers, and are likely to spread to new areas

However, Apple is likely to continue to lose share in the internet-centric smartphone market, and publishers will face a far messier, fragmented world of competing platforms, app stores and payment systems