Freshbusinessthinking.com writes: Soon after it was declared granted religious recognition in Sweden, a survey has suggested that file sharing is on the increase across Europe.
Four in five respondents to One.com’s survey of European customers share photos, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, music and videos via email, while only seven percent burn discs to share with friends and family.
Swedes emerge from the study as those who use tablets and smartphones the most, while the Europeanaverage is only one in seven respondents using mobile devices for file sharing.
The survey reveals that 82% of European respondents shared more files in 2011 than they did in 2010. This trend is being led by survey participants in the UK (92%), Belgium (83%) and Denmark (82%), while 24% of respondents in the Netherlands and 22% in Sweden are sharing fewer files in 2011 than in 2010.
The main reasons given for sharing less this year are that there are fewer opportunities to share files (40%), it is too time-consuming (13%) and concerns over privacy (13%). Interestingly security worries do not seem to concern respondents in Belgium, Netherlands or Sweden much, who did not cite this as an explanation for sharing a reduced amount of files in 2011.
Recent analyst houses including Forrester Research report that as early as next year there could be 60 million tablets and 175 million smartphones in use by mobile professionals around the world. In spite of this, the survey reveals that file sharing takes place predominantly over laptops (63%) and desktop computers (22%).
Out of all respondents, the Swedes are the most active mobile users distributing files music, videos and photos to friends, family and colleagues over tablets (seven percent) and smartphones (20 percent). In contrast, Belgians (two percent for tablets and two percent for smartphones), Dutch (two percent for tablets and twelve percent for smartphones) and Danish (three percent for tablets and no smartphone usage) are at the other end of the spectrum, lowering the average of European mobile sharing to two percent for tablets and twelve percent for smartphones.
“People often think that sharing large files can be complicated and time-consuming, especially if you use ftp servers with complicated log-in procedures or need to split the data into different packages so it can fit on two or three USB sticks”, said Thomas Medard Frederiksen, Chief Operating Officer at One.com.
“It does not need to be complicated. With our Cloud Drive, part of our web hosting packages, you can store files easily and safely and create a sharable link directly on your computer, through the browser or with one of the apps for mobile devices. You can give the link to those you want to share some folder, files or pictures with and by clicking on the link, the recipient can access all the data you have chosen to share.”
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