Communications of the ACM

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speed of 46Mbps. However,
interference between Wi-Fi
networks is common in the
many districts where people
live in apartment buildings,
while cellular networks can
also be heavily congested in
city centers.
Most Europeans now
have smartphones. Approxi-
mately two-thirds of people
in the EU28 between ages 16
and 74 had mobile Internet
access at the end of 2017, up
from 36% in 2012. But there
are wide regional variations,
with that figure reaching
87% in the Netherlands and
Sweden, compared with just
32% in Italy and 40% in Po-
land. In 2017, close to three
quarters (72%) of individuals
in the EU28 accessed the In-
ternet on a daily basis, with
a further 8% using it at least
once a week.

A Battleground for
North American and
East Asian Technologies

Lacking a major computing
industry of its own, Europe
is a relatively neutral market
for hardware and software
made in both North U.S. and
East Asia. Major American
and Asian brands go head-
to-head in the smartphone,
tablet, and computing
markets, but their operat-
ing systems all hail from
the U.S. Android dominates
the European smartphone
market. Some 70% of smart-
phones in use in Europe
run Android, while 28% run
Apple’s iOS, while less than
1% run Windows.f However,
in the tablet market, iOS
has a market share of 66%,
while Android has 34%. But
there is one key smartphone
component that hails from
Europe—U.K.-based ARM
Holdings’ microprocessor
architecture is used in more
than 90% of the world’s
handsets. This low-power
architecture has proven
pivotal in the development
of advanced handsets with
long battery lives.

Social networking in
many European countries is
not as prevalent or as popu-
lar as in North America,
the birthplace of Facebook
and other leading social
networks. Just over half
( 54 %) of Europeans age 16
to 74 use the Internet for
social networking, while
in France and Italy that
proportion is as low as
43%,g potentially reflecting
a preference for face-to-
face interactions. In the
same demographic, 57%
of Europeans shop online,
while 18% are using accom-
modation-sharing services,
such as Airbnb, and 8% use
f Statcounter;
http://gs.statcounter.com/os-
market-share/mobile/europe
g Eurostat (figures for end of 2017);
http://bit.ly/2sHEpB8
ride-sharing services, such
as Uber.

In Europe’s three largest economies (France, Germany, and the U. K) You Tube and Netflix are the top video streaming apps, ahead of local media players, while WhatsApp Messenger, Facebook, and Facebook Messenger are the top three social apps in these markets.h Although major U.S. Internet services are widely used across Europe, some smaller players also have significant traction. For example, London-based music recognition service Shazam, which was recently acquired by Apple, is ranked sixth in Italy in terms of monthly active users, and seventh in France, and ninth in Spain. In Russia, a market apart, cultural and regulatory factors have helped several local players, including Yandex, Mail.Ru, and Sberbank, compete very effectively with the global players. All of these have apps in Russia’s top 10, as ranked by monthly active users.

Europeans Care
about Privacy and
the Environment

Privacy is a big deal for
Europeans, particularly in
Germany, which is very wary
of state surveillance after
the country’s experience
of authoritarianism in the
h App Annie; https://www.appan-
nie.com
first half of the 20th century:
Some 45% of Europeans
who use the Internet have
installed or changed their
antivirus software in the
past three years due to
privacy and security issues,
while 39% say they are now
less likely to share personal
information on websites.i
More than six in 10 respon-
dents (61%) say the security
and privacy features of an
IT product play some role
in their choice, while 27%
are ready to pay more for
better security and privacy
features.
Europeans also tend to be
greener than North Ameri-
cans. More than nine in 10
respondents (94%) say that
protecting the environment
is important to them person-
ally, and among these more
than half (56%) say it is very
important.j These findings
have remained broadly con-
sistent over the past decade.
Europeans have mixed
feelings about the direc-
tion in which ICT is headed.
Although more than six in 10
respondents have a positive
view of robots and artificial
intelligence, an even higher
proportion (72%) agree ro-
bots and AI steal jobs.