Mobile Web Use Climbing - Report

US telecoms consumer research group Telephia and online behaviour investigators comScore have claimed in a new report that as many as 5.7million people in the UK regularly access the internet via a mobile device. The findings came in a study released today, which examines mobile versus PC-based Internet usage. According to the findings of the report, while around 30 million UK residents accessed the Internet during January of this year using a home or work-based PC, over one sixth of them, or 19%, had used a mobile phone or other handheld device to do so.

The figures put the UK slightly ahead of the US where 30 million mobile users had accessed the Web via a mobile connection compared to 176 million using a fixed line connection.  

The Telephia and comScore research, MobileWeb Metrix, shows that UK Mobile Web users under 35 years of age account for 67% of the entire Mobile Web audience in the country, whereas the same age segment accounts for only 39% of the PC-based Internet audience. The two companies say that gender is also an influencing factor, with the study revealing that 63% of British Mobile Web users are male, compared to 54% of PC Internet users. In the US, the figures are 60% male for Mobile Web users, versus 49% of PC Internet users.

According to Bob Ivins, managing director of comScore Europe, the situation is "Similar to the Internet 10-15 years ago, men under the age of 35 are the early adopters of new technology and more likely to use mobile devices to access the Mobile Web than women or men aged over 35." He continued, "the Mobile Web is at an early state of development, but we expect Mobile Web usage to grow as phone performance improves, sites optimise their content for the small screen and operators fine tune their tariffs, enabling consumers to take full advantage of mobile phone capabilities, content and convenience."

The two companies reported that the most popular sites on the Mobile Web in both the UK and the US, in terms of unique visitors, mirror those for PC Internet users, with Yahoo!, MSN and Google all featuring in the ranking of leading sites on both sides of the Atlantic. BBC and SKY were the leading sites for UK Mobile Web users in January, attracting 2.3 million and 1.2 million unique visitors, respectively.