Summary:Purchasing
via mobile and tablet devices in the country is above world average, says PwC.
By Angelica
Mari for Brazil Tech
Mobile
commerce take-up is gathering momentum in Brazil, with a significant increase
in the number of consumers using mobile devices to purchase products and
services seen in the last couple of years.
Some 54
percent of the 1,000 Brazilian consumers polled by PricewaterhouseCoopers
between August and September 2014 have purchased something via their mobiles or
smartphones and 51 percent have done so via a tablet device.
Out of these
consumers, 31 percent buy items through their mobile devices at least once a
month, up from 17 percent seen in the research carried out in the previous
year, according to PwC.
This compares
to an average of 48 percent of 18,068 consumers polled across 18 other
countries - including United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Japan and
Australia - who bought items with their mobile devices.
According to
the Total Retail report, m-commerce in Brazil has been boosted by consumers
aged between 18-24: some 60 percent of consumers within that age bracket have
purchased something via their phones, compared with 40 percent of consumers
older than 24.
Separate
research by consulting firm E-bit indicates that while mobile commerce
continues to grow in Brazil, it is still a small slice of the online commerce
pie: purchases made through smartphones and tablets represent only 9.7 percent
of all e-commerce transactions processed in Brazil during 2014.