Report: U.S. Mobile Web Use Doubles In One Year

ComScore put the number of daily unique mobile Web users in the country at about 22.37 million in January 2009, up 107 percent from 10.8 million in January 2008.

Weekly users jumped 87 percent, from about 10.3 million to about 19.3 million, ComScore said, and the overall number of users who accessed the Web for news and information from a mobile device at least once during the month rose 71 percent, from about 36.9 million in January 2008 to about 63.2 million in January 2009. (ComScore excluded social networking from its "news and information" numbers in this set of statistics.)

"We have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people's lives," said Mark Donovan, senior vice president for mobile at ComScore, in a statement. "This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information."

According to ComScore, the number of mobile Web users accessing social networking sites or blogs went up 427 percent, from 1.76 million in January 2008 to about 9.28 million in January 2009. Other mobile Web uses that increased from one year ago by more than 100 percent included accessing financial accounts or stock information (188 percent), accessing movie information (185 percent), and accessing business directories (160 percent).

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"Social networking and blogging have emerged as very popular daily uses of the mobile Web, and these activities are growing at a torrid pace," Donovan said in the statement. "We also note that much of the growth in news and information usage is driven by the increased popularity of downloaded applications, such as those offered by the iPhone, and by text-based searches."

ComScore said maps are the most popular downloaded application (8.2 million users in January), while search is the top use for SMS-based news and information. About half of males aged 18 to 34 use mobile news and information--the most active demographic, ComScore said. About 40 percent of females aged 18 to 24 accessed mobile news and information in January as well.