by News Editor
L. Sutherland
L. Sutherland
A new study has revealed that Facebook is leading the way when it comes to mobile web use, with the social networking site gathering more hits on the go than search king Google. The GSMA Mobile Media Metrics report provides insight into mobile web use, and its first findings, released on Friday, revealed that Facebook was leading the way, with five million unique users accessing the site from mobile devices. Google was hot on its heels however, with 4.5 million users accessing its various sites.
According to the report, around 16 million people - more than 25 per cent of the UK's population - were using their phones to surf the web in December 2009. This increasing number could have something to do with the fact that one fifth of UK mobile subscribers are the proud owners of smartphones. However, the way in which the general public has chosen to put their high-powered pocket organisers to use may be a shock to some.
Facebook also topped the charts when it came to the number of minutes spent on the site:
Number of minutes mobile users spent on sites:
- 1) Facebook 2.2 bn
- 2) Google 396m
- 3) Microsoft Sites 166m
- 4) Orange Sites 139m
- 5) AOL (and Bebo) 106m
- 6) Apple 104m
- 7) Vodafone 89m
- 8) BBC sites 84m
- 9) Flirtomatic 55m
- 10) Yahoo! sites 49m
The report was undertaken with comScore as well as operators O2, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile and 3UK. It was based on anonymised, census-level data for mobile Internet usage across a number of mobile networks. This was then augmented with demographic data that has been collected with the consent of a representative sample of mobile Internet users.
One thing is certainly clear from the results; Facebook has stolen the heart - and time - of the UK's mobile users. Maybe they're finding the answers to all of their questions on the social networking site? Or maybe making and keeping friends is more important than ever, now that the internet is ever-present.
