Mobile internet increasingly popular

Researchers at Nielsen say the number of British people accessing the internet via their mobile phones has increased 25% from Q2 to Q3 2008, rising from 5.8 million to 7.3 million. In contrast, PC-based internet use increased 3% from 34.3 million to 35.3 million. Google is the most popular PC-based web site, while the most popular mobile internet site is BBC News, with 1.7 million British visitors (24% of mobile internet consumers) every month. [Sources: PDF press release; Telecoms.com; TotalTele.com]

Just 2% of iPhone users don't touch data services

Research company Nielsen has calculated there are 3.6 million mobile subscribers (aged 13+) actively using an Apple iPhone in the USA, with 98% of customers using at least one data service. [Source: wirelessandmobilenews.com]

20 million households in USA only have mobiles

New research from The Nielsen Company reveals that more than 20 million households in the USA rely on a mobile phone instead of fixed-line service. That's 17% of all homes with fixed-line or mobile phones - and the company says it could reach 20% by the end of the year. Nielsen’s study also says that 'wireless substitutors' tend to use their mobile phones more than people with landlines but still save money when compared with fixed-line use, which costs an average $40 per month. 10% of lfixed-line phone customers have previously gone wireless-only in their household but have later returned to landline service, usually because they need a landline for another service (such as burglar alarms, satellite or cable TV, fax machines etc.) [Press release]

US mobile video users watch over 3 hours per month

Market researchers at The Nielsen Company have just published a survey showing video and television usage on conventional TV sets, on the web and on mobile devices. Perhaps it's no surprise that Americans are watching more TV than ever before - an average of 127 hours and 15 minutes per month - but they're also spending more time watching on the move. When they looked at the 4 million mobile phone users who used TV or video services, average usage was 3 hours and 15 minutes per month. [Press release; pdf report]

Mobile internet reaches 'critical mass'

The number of mobile internet users has reached a 'critical mass' of users this year. That's the opinion of Nielsen Mobile, which says 15.6% of all American mobile phone users and 12.9% of all UK mobile users are regularly going online. European users favoured the Nokia N95, followed by the Nokia N70 and the Motorola RAZR or RAZR2. [Press release; pdf report]

Google is top mobile search engine

Figures from Nielsen Mobile show that Google is the most-used mobile internet search provider. Research in the first three months of this year shows that 61% of mobile searches were conducted on Google. with the next-closest being Yahoo!, which had 18% of all mobile searches. In addition, Google searchers used the search facility around nine times each per month, compared with 6.7 times per month for Yahoo. [Source: BWCS.com]

Social Networking is going mobile (in case you hadn't noticed)

Research conducted by Nielsen Mobile shows that a growing number of mobile phone subscribers are taking online social networking to the streets. The UK leads Europe, with approximately 810,000 mobile subscribers - around 1.7% of the total number of customers - visiting social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That's double the percentage of users in the rest of Europe and is also fractionally higher than in the USA. Facebook was the UK leader with 557,000 unique mobile users per month, followed by MySpace with 211,000 unique users. [Press release]

Mobile internet increases the audience of web sites by 13%

Offering a mobile internet service extends the audience reach of an internet site by an average of 13%, according to a new report from researchers at The Nielsen Company. The highest increase came from weather sites, which averaged a 22% lift in their overall audience reach through mobile web traffic compared with PC-only visitors. [Press release]

Mobile advertising is working

A new report from Nielsen Mobile reveals that 23% of mobile customers in the USA have seen mobile advertising in the past 30 days - and half of those people have responded to the ad. Nielsen Mobile's Mobile Advertising Report also says text messaging is the most popular way of responding to ads, with 26% of those who saw an advertisement having responded at least once via SMS. The 13 to 17 age group was most likely to remember mobile ads. [Sources: MediaWeek.com, Reuters,]