Google most visited site on mobile web: Informate
Informate, a telecom research agency of the Cross Tab Group, says that Google, with a reach of 59 per cent, is the most visited site on the mobile web. The online search giant is followed by Gmail (reach of 26 per cent), Yahoo (17 per cent), Orkut (17 per cent), Nokia (14 per cent), GetJar (13 per cent), Yahoo Mail (13 per cent) and Google Maps (11 per cent). The findings are published in the Mobile Metrics Report, which was released on Wednesday in New Delhi.
The report, based on sample data of 2,346 collected from April to September 2009, highlights the trends in consumer mobile usage. It gives an insight on various aspects of mobile phone usage among the mid to high end customers, who spend more time on browsing and entertainment than on voice and SMS.
Kedar Sohoni, president, Informate Mobile Intelligence, said at a press event, "While the mobile phone sector has grown, it has not been measured. It is here that we see a gap. Automated data capture is the way to go for all media, whether it is TV, Internet or mobile."
Among the applications used by mobile phone users, Real Player, Visual Radio, Voice Recorder and the game Snake made it to the top slots. The report says that the time spent on multimedia activities is almost five times than that spent on games. In the month of September, 85.9 per cent of time was spent on multimedia functions and 14.1 per cent on games.
The report reveals that the time spent on calling is comparatively higher but shows a downward trend, whereas the time spent on chat is moving upwards. On an average 25-30 minutes of active time is spent on voice calls and about 15-20 minutes on messaging. Mobile users make and receive around 340 calls per month and spend close to 12 hours per month on calls.
Sohoni said, "Phone cameras are not being used that much as there is no effective way to share them. People usually click pictures and store them in their mobiles."
Informate offers reports through two core services, namely, Informate SmartMeter (for behavourial data) and Informate Quest (for attitudinal data). SmartMeter is a downloadable application, which provides Informate with his profile data. The meter tracks the actual usage data of every panelist and then transfers it to the server via GPRS on a daily basis.
According to Sohoni, Informate has around 2,500 respondents in 15 cities in India and expects to touch 25 cities by the next quarter. Informate incentivises users by giving them a feature to trace their phones, in case of a theft or loss, as well as by providing itemised bills for their prepaid usage. Informate also gives a token recharge to the respondents every month.
