According to a new study released by the research company
M:Metrics the iPhone is heavily used by its users to browse the mobile web. The
company even stated that in just six months after its US release,
iPhone is the “the most popular device for accessing news and information on
the mobile Web.”
The results of their study revealed that 85 percent of
iPhone users have used the Apple’s ultimate gadget to access news and
information in January. "The iPhone has certainly delivered on its
hype," said Mark Donovan, senior analyst, M:Metrics. "Beyond a doubt,
this device is compelling consumers to interact with the mobile Web, delivering
off-the-charts usage from everything to text messaging to mobile video."
The information is not so surprising, as in January Google
said that the traffic to its site from Apple’s mobile phone surged over
Christmas, surpassing incoming traffic from any other type of mobile device.
The iPhone accounts 2 percent from the smartphone market, in which the
Symbian-based devices accounts close to 63 percent.
However, M:Metrics’ study shows other interesting data about
the media habits of iPhone users.
It seems like besides news, the iPhone was used especially
for web search. M:Metrics said that 58.6
percent of the surveyed users have conducted searches from their iPhone. Also,
they used the phone to access a social networking site or a blog (49,7 percent,
nearly twelve times the market average).
Facebook, one of the first sites that understood the “power”
of iPhone and it has customized its content, has attracted twenty percent of
iPhone owners.
Also, Google Maps and YouTube, other two services that were
quick to offer a special widget, has become popular among the iPhone users.
"Two featured widgets, YouTube and Google Maps, are
extremely popular among iPhone users: 30.4 percent accessed YouTube and 36 percent
used Google Maps. In comparison, only one percent of all mobile subscribers
accessed YouTube and 2.6 percent checked out Google Maps," said Donovan.
M:Metrics revealed the demographic composition of iPhone
users, which are similar to the demographics of other smartphone owners. They
are more likely to be: male, aged 25-34, earn more than $100,000 and have a
college degree, than the average mobile subscriber.
"While the demographics of iPhone users are very
similar to all smartphone owners, the iPhone is outpacing other smartphones in
driving mobile content consumption by a significant margin," said Donovan.
"In addition to the attributes of the device itself, another important
factor to consider is the fact that all iPhones on AT&T are attached to an
unlimited data plan. Our data shows that once the fear of surprise data charges
is eliminated, mobile content consumption increases dramatically, regardless of
device."
As Apple will launch the final version of its iPhone SDK in
June, it will be very interesting to see how the survey made by M:Media will
look like in about six months after the applications for iPhone will be
released through AppStore.
