The USA has knocked the UK off the top slot for mobile web browsing with 29% of the worldwide traffic compared to 20% in the UK, according to new data from mobile web firm Bango.
Anil Malhotra, SVP of marketing at Bango, said: “With 245 million subscribers, it was only a matter of time before the US became the number 1 country in the world for mobile web browsing.
“When it comes to payments though, the US is accelerating faster than any other country and now accounts for 57% of payments worldwide, compared to 38% in the UK.”
Bango said that the publicity behind the Apple iPhone has encouraged more people to browse the mobile web in countries such as the US and UK. However, this increase in mobile browsing has taken businesses by surprise as many do not have mobile websites.
Malhotra added: “Many people simply have no idea that they have visitors from mobile devices accessing their PC websites – these mobile visitors are simply invisible to them.
“Part of the problem is lack of awareness and to help, we have created a short video at www.bango.com/mobiletracking which explains how you can get a good grasp of how much mobile traffic you have.”
The February Bango statistics identified mobile web browsers from a total of 208 different countries and using 1,811 different handsets.
The statistics also show that while some countries such as India and Indonesia have a good appetite for browsing on their mobiles, it does not always convert into purchases. Only five countries in the Top 10 browsing chart are also in the Top 10 payments chart – USA, UK, Portugal, South Africa and Spain.
The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) recently released its top ten predictions for 2009, and top of the list was the ‘iPhone effect’.
MEF said that mobile applications have emerged as a new content category giving a boost to the mobile internet, which will finally come of age this year (see Top 10 mobile entertainment trends for 2009).
An Analysys Mason report, meanwhile, has forecast that the mobile broadband market will continue its rapid growth during the next five years (see Mobile broadband market to continue its rapid growth).
According to the report, there will be 148 million mobile broadband connections in Europe by 2014, when they will account for almost half of all broadband connections in the region.
