CAMBRIDGE, ENGLAND — The U.S., long thought to lag significantly behind Europe in the adoption of all things mobile, in September actually will surpass the United Kingdom in mobile Web use, according to a new report from Bango.According to Bango data, the top five countries accessing the mobile Web via Bango in July 2008 were the U.K. at 19.35-percent, the U.S. at 18.88-percent, India at 10.82-percent, South Africa at 8.82-percent and Indonesia at 4.08-percent. Bango identifies users by country and network of origin. The ranking is produced by measuring the number of user visits to mobile websites from each country.
“The USA 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. “We fully expect the U.S. will overtake the U.K. in this ranking as early as [August].”
As the mobile Web grows in the U.S., so does interest from U.S. businesses. For example, in July Forrester Research told the Wall Street Journal the number of inquiries it received from businesses and service providers wanting to talk about the mobile web jumped 40-percent in 2007.
“We predicted 2008 would be a pivotal year for the mobile Web in the U.S., and our data is backing that up,” Kerr said. “Clearly the rate of growth and acceleration is getting faster in the U.S. and around the world.”
Part of the reason for the growth of mobile Web use worldwide, according to Bango, is that more cellular phone operators are encouraging off-portal browsing and have increased their payout rates to content providers, thereby encouraging the availability of more content with greater variety.
Key drivers in opening up the mobile Web include inserting at operator portals search boxes that facilitate off-portal searching, introducing flat-rate data charges and providing higher price points and payout rates that encourage content providers to run promotions on the networks on which they receive better returns on marketing investments.
According to Bango, 2007 was a good year for European operators who instituted these changes, and the company expects the experiences of operators like Vodafone to influence U.S. operator’s behavior.
“2007 was a good year for all U.K. networks, but by moving decisively to support off-portal content sales, Vodafone leapt to the top of the league in value of transactions,” Bango Chief Executive Officer Ray Anderson said. “We foresee the U.K. operators battling to offer even better payout rates, approaching that of credit cards.”
Compared to Premium SMS where content providers market through the Web or in print, today’s content providers are choosing to market more efficiently to users who already are browsing the mobile Web. Using mobile advertising and search marketing, content providers buy traffic on specific networks and can choose users with certain handsets.
The mobile Web gives content providers other important benefits, Bango noted. For example, offers can be targeted to new or repeat customers, marketing campaigns can be tracked to calculate the return on investment and there’s more repeat business within the browse-and-buy WAP flow.
“More businesses are now launching a mobile Web presence so they can engage directly with their consumers anytime and from anywhere,” Anderson said.
