As Yahoo!'s oneSearch technology continues to develop, reports across the web have suggested over the last week that Yahoo! is the firm leader in the mobile search field, flying in the face of Google's traditional search market dominance. However, the first M:Metrics MetreDirect survey of US and UK users has shown that Google is the most popular mobile search application on both sides of the Atlantic.
Smartphone devices, such as those using the Blackberry, Palm and Windows Mobile operating systems, were the most frequently used for browsing, accounting for 42 per cent of page views.
In the US, the most highly used sites after Google were rival brands such as Yahoo!, MSN, Live and Go.com, while UK users mostly used operator portals such as O2, Orange and Three, alongside the BBC site.
The average session lasted eight minutes and took place between 08:00 and 17:00.
Related M:Metrics research comparing the US with continental Europe has shown that users within the EU tend to use MMS more heavily than their American counterparts, at around 25 per cent to 14.7 per cent of users respectively.
The number of users using mobile devices for news and information was similar in both territories, but EU users were more reliant on SMS alerts, while US users were more reliant on browsing.
"There are substantial variations in attitude from person to person, but on average, we found that people in Europe expect the mobile to play a more prominent, recognised role in the structure of society, and many people look to the mobile as a central source of innovation," said M:Metrics research partner, Italian aggregator Buongiorno.
"People in the US can be just as enthusiastic about the technology, but they often think in terms of utility - shrinking and mobilising the PC and internet - rather than an entertaining gadget to love."
