Bango is reporting today that mobile Web usage is gaining traction in the United States and soon will surpass the United Kingdom, “where consumers have accessed the Internet from phones for years.”
According to data supplied by Bango officials, the top five countries accessing the mobile Web through Bango in July 2008 are the United Kingdom at 19.35 percent, the United States at 18.88 percent, India at 10.82 percent, South Africa at 8.82 percent and – here’s the one you didn’t expect – Indonesia at 4.08 percent.
Bango says it identifies users by country and network of origin. The ranking is produced by measuring the number of user visits to mobile Web sites from each country.
“The (U.S.) 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,” said Adam Kerr, vice president of Bango North America at Bango. “We fully expect the (United States) will overtake the (United Kingdom) in this ranking as early as this month.”
Forrester Research told The Wall Street Journal last month that the number of inquiries it received from businesses and service providers wanting to talk about the mobile Web jumped 40 percent last year.
Last month, Bango unveiled technology designed to help Web site owners “measure the value of mobile sites,” by counting unique visitors browsing their sites.
This new site analysis capability in the latest release of Bango Analytics, v3.0 “complements existing campaign analysis functionality and features enhanced image tag technology to identify unique users,” the Bangovians say.
Ray Anderson, chief executive officer of Bango, said with this new version, “mobile Web site owners can now get a real picture of the value of their mobile Web site.”
With site analysis added to its mobile analytics service, Bango now provides two metrics sought after by site owners – unique visitors and conversion rates from mobile marketing campaigns.
Results of a recent survey of more than 550 mobile Web site owners, commissioned by Bango, found that 80 percent of respondents said “the daily, weekly or monthly number of unique visitors” was the “most important” data point for them.
Other important data were “conversion rates and effectiveness of mobile marketing,” which polled 71 percent, “new or repeat visitors” 58 percent and “information about the handsets your visitors use” was cited by 54 percent.
Bango provides two techniques for capturing mobile metrics – link tracking for campaign analysis and page tracking for site analysis.
David Sims is a contributing editor for IoTevolutionworld. To read more of David�s articles, please visit his columnist page. He also blogs for IoTevolutionworld here.Edited by
Michael Dinan