Are brands finally wearing down consumers with QR codes? After many years of plugging away at them, the latest data form Comscore on EU5 suggests that smartphone owners are beginning to scan them. In the UK, for example it is around 3 million people. Pretty good, but still little over 10% of smartphone users. However, compare that to some of the other most used functions – daily web browsing 82%, social media access 81%, YouTube viewing 92% (UK figures from Our Mobile Planet). QR codes are far from mass media.

QR codes can be useful, however many brands use them poorly and there is far to go. Econsultancy has suggested that the Comscore figure is under-represented, who found that 19% of UK users had scanned codes. One clear piece of data, though, is the rise in QR scanning. Besides awareness, high levels of smartphone adoption are probably helping to drive the activity.