| Mobile Opera Invading Browsing Domain |
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by Shelley Aul
The fast evolving mobile and telecom sector is for sure leaving the deeper impacts on the web browsing trends worldwide. The internet browsing domain till now dominated by Personal computers usage is giving the way to mobile phones which are primed to invade that territory as depicted by results from The Face of the Web, an annual study by Ipsos Insight.
The study was conducted in November and December 2005. Ipsos questioned 6,544 adults in Canada, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the US, as well as people in urban areas in Brazil, China, India, Mexico and Russia. Results clearly portray internet trends with people turning to mobile phones for Internet use more quickly than they are adopting laptops for the same purpose in many parts of the world credited to the rapid pace of mobile phone installation and the development of wireless networks which is steering the robust growth in the use of phones for browsing.
Over 90 percent of households in Japan, South Korea and urban China own cell phones, as do 80 percent of households in Western Europe, 60 percent in Canada and three out of four households in the U.S. In general, almost all wireless device activities witnessed growth in 2005 - including m-commerce (i.e., purchasing a product or service via mobile phone), conducting financial transactions, sending or receiving digital pictures, and downloading entertainment content, according to the study. The Face of the Web, noted that in areas where mobile phones are not used for internet access, wirelessly-enabled notebooks and other devices fill the gap and rather than younger, early adopters are the people over the age of 35.
28 per cent of mobile phone owners across the globe have accessed the internet on their mobile handsets up against the 25 per cent mark at the end of 2004.Rising to some 40 per cent in the industry’s most advanced market, Japan. Interestingly, UK stands second followed by America’s 29 per users who accessed the web on our phone. The interest in North America has, in contrast, started to flatten.
As said by Brian Cruikshank of Ipsos Insight "Accessing the Internet on a wireless handheld device is no longer a novelty for consumers in the major global economies. It’s becoming a common, everyday occurrence for many people. In the long term, many of today’s PC-centric online activities could be complemented through the mobile phone or migrate to the mobile phone altogether, due to greater convenience and faster connection speeds."
The booming Mobile internet zone has certainly caught the attention of some of the UK’s operators. With services like internet-a-like service, i-mode and availability of internet access bundles under the brand Web N Walk already luring the users the mobile web also got its very own top level domain, dot-mobi, last year. Opera for Mobile is making its move, striking partnerships are expected to grow the market for mobile Web browsing in Europe too where more than 1 billion mobile devices already are already equipped with mobile browser. The players like Access, Microsoft Apple Nokia are also in the game and gearing up to get the best out of the emerging mobile browsing scenario.
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