US Mobile Web Usage on the Increase

Mobile web data released by Bango shows that mobile web usage is not only gaining traction in the US, but that it soon will surpass the level of traffic the UK, where consumers have been accessing the Internet from mobile phones for several years.
According to the Bango data, the top five countries accessing the mobile web via Bango in July 2008 were the UK at 19.35%, the US at 18.88%, India at 10.82%, South Africa at 8.82% and Indonesia at 4.08%. Bango identifies users by country and network of origin. The ranking is produced by measuring the number of user visits to mobile websites from each country.
“The US share of the browsing market has grown as an increasing number of phones come with bigger screens and service contracts that include unlimited internet access,” says Bango North America VP, Adam Kerr. “We fully expect the US will overtake the UK in this ranking as early as this month.”
As the mobile web grows in the US, says Bango, so does interest from business. Forrester Research told the Wall Street Journal last month, for example, that the number of enquiries it received from businesses and service providers wanting to talk about the mobile web jumped 40% last year.
“We predicted 2008 would be a pivotal year for the mobile web in the US, and our data is backing that up,” says Kerr. “Clearly the rate of growth and acceleration is getting faster in the US and around the world.”