According to BIA/Kelsey and ConStat, as the US mobile internet population grows (29.2% of mobile phone users logged onto the internet in 2009), so too does the percentage of those people who qualify as “heavy users”. These are people who use their mobile devices to log onto the internet 10 times or more per week. Over 21% of mobile web users qualify as heavy users, up from 15% in 2008. The average number of monthly mobile web session has doubled in that time.
As for myself, I do not have a mobile device that I use to get onto the internet, but once I do (sometime in mid-2010), look out!
Heavy use of mobile text messaging and mobile email have also increased in the last year. Half of mobile device users texted more than 10 times weekly in 2009, while 20% send and receive more than 10 mobile emails weekly.
Where 20% of mobile users had performed a local search, the number of mobile users performing nonlocal searches did not grow. In fact, nonlocal search is perhaps the only area that did not see growth in the last year. Activities such as sending and receiving video, and purchasing online videos and TV shows via mobile devices, all increased in the last year.
According to Rick Ducey, CSO of BIA/Kelsey, “This represents a fundamental and rapid shift in media use, which needs to be considered in determining the appropriate mix of spending levels among local platforms. Media companies that do not currently offer a differentiated mobile advertising option had better get there quickly.”
