Study Shows Mobile Internet All About Need

New research into the most popular mobile sites in the UK reveals that the market is concerned with functionality over entertainment.

That’s the view of a senior analyst at Nielsen Online, which carried out the study looking into the UK’s mobile internet industry.

Nielsen’s Mobile Media View finds that BBC News, BBC Weather, Sky Sports and Gmail are the most popular mobile sites among users.

And among the PC-based internet sites visited most regularly by mobile users are Google Search and eBay.

In addition, BBC Weather, Sky Sports and Gmail are more popular among mobile users than among people accessing their sites via PCs.

“This highlights the advantage of mobile when it comes to immediacy; people often need fast, instant access to weather or sports news and mobile can obviously satisfy this, wherever they are,” says senior analyst Kent Ferguson.

He adds: “The fact that the most weather, sports, news and email sites make up the majority of leading mobile sites show that mobile Internet is mainly about functionality and need at the moment as opposed to the more entertainment and ecommerce-focused makeup of the leading PC-based sites.”

The inaugural Mobile Media View also reveals that the number of people in the UK using mobile sites grew by 25% during the second quarter of this year (from 5.8 to 7.3 million).

[HT - Media Week]