With over six million people using the navigation gadget Google Maps on smartphones during April, it is the most popular application (app) in Britain, a recent study shows.

During this month, almost 8.8m UK mobile owners used a tool that connected to the internet.

This figure makes up 40 per cent of all smartphone users. The second most popular function is Yahoo! Weather, closely followed by Facebook, the world's top social media website.

Other much used applications are Ebay, YouTube and Yahoo! Stocks. Four out of ten smart phone users throughout the country have used an app to connect to the Internet.

This shows that the functionality of phones has changed and consumers communicate differently with one another. Where people used their phones mainly to make calls, now they are being used as a portable computer, checking their emails and browsing the web.

ComScore measures internet traffic and undertook the research on behalf of mobile phone trade body GSMA.

Henry Stevens at GSMA said:

"Apps have become an important entry point for accessing content on mobile devices and their usage will only increase with the rapid proliferation of smartphones."