IPHONES DOMINATE AUSTRALIAN MOBILE DATA CONSUMPTION ACCORDING TO FIRST COMPREHENSIVE MOBILE INTERNET REPORT

IPHONES DOMINATE AUSTRALIAN MOBILE DATA CONSUMPTION ACCORDING TO FIRST COMPREHENSIVE MOBILE INTERNET REPORT

...Amethon Australian Mobile Internet Insight Study finds iPhone users consumed six times as much data as average mobile users...

An Australian Mobile Internet Insight study has found that browsing habits and data consumption for users of the new 3G Apple device is significantly higher than the average mobile device.  The report, which provides insight into Australia’s mobile web browsing activities for August, says that the iPhone completely dominated data consumption behaviour and iPhone generated traffic was growing at nine per cent per day.

The Australian Mobile Internet Insight, which is the first issue of a bi-monthly report, found that almost six times as much data was consumed during the average iPhone browsing session compared with the average mobile session - 2.07 MB versus 0.30 MB.

The report also notes the average page size for iPhone browsing is more than double the mobile average - a result that the authors of the report believe is due to iPhone users browsing the desktop versions of websites with higher-quality content than the mobile versions.

iPhone users were found to delve into sites more deeply and browse for longer than mobile and desktop users, with iPhone users browsing for 2.8 minutes, almost double the duration of average mobile users at 1.6 minutes, and even ahead of desktop users who average 2.4 minutes.  Amethon believes that this statistic will change as iPhone ownership lengthens – and as the first bills arrive for iPhone owners.

“Proud new iPhone owners are very likely to be surprised by incredibly high data usage, because of the quantity of data consumed with their heavy web browsing. Our belief is that many will adjust their browsing habits as the novelty wears off and some may upgrade their current plan to allow them more data usage,” said James Cleary, CTO of Amethon.

Other interesting facts

         iPhone site navigation was found by the report to be higher even than desktop usage and a lot higher than mobile usage. The average page views per visit for the iPhone were 73% higher than other mobiles and 30% higher than desktop browsers. However, the report interprets this activity as experiential browsing, with iPhone users trying browsing and showing off the capability to friends in their first few weeks of ownership.

         It was found that iPhone users browse at similar times of day to average mobile users; however iPhone browsing seemed to be proportionally greater in the morning, around 8am and did not exhibit as large an evening peak, between 9pm and 10pm, than the average mobile user.  This morning spike could be that there are a large proportion of business users for the iPhone.  Saturday seems to be the peak browsing day for both iPhone and average mobile users, due to heavy usage of weekend sports content.

         iPhone users were found to be almost twenty times more likely to use desktop versions of web search engines than the average mobile user who is predominantly using the mobile version, at 97 per cent versus 43.6 per cent for mobile.  Google dominates as the main source of mobile search, with 95.5 per cent of the share with Yahoo! a distant second at just 3.5 per cent.  For the iPhone users, Google is even more popular with 97 per cent of the market and Yahoo! with only 2.9 per cent of the share.

Based in Sydney, Amethon provides mobile web analytics for mobile content publishers and operators in Australia, the US and UK.  The company used its Mobile Analytics product to prepare this Mobile Internet Insight report based on aggregated data from several hundred mobile and conventional websites.  Publishers, mobile operators and content providers use the special insight of the Mobile Analytics product to give them a unique understanding of mobile content browsing, data usage and content consumption.

“The key differences between Mobile Analytics and traditional web analytics solutions include optimised measurement of mobile web activity, ability to filter reports based on the handset type for example the iPhone, as well as measurement of data consumption,” concluded James Cleary.

About the data

This report draws on data aggregated from Amethon’s global client base with a specific focus on providing insight into Australia’s mobile web browsing activities for the first two weeks of August 2008. 

The number of global mobile browsing sessions analysed by Amethon’s Mobile Analytics technology during the month of August is more than 5 million.  More than 80% of visitors to Australian sites are from Australia.

The amount of mobile traffic in the global data set is more than 100 million page views.  The report represents browsing and download traffic only and does not include streaming or P2P data.

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About Amethon

Amethon Solutions (Asia Pacific) Pty Ltd was founded in Sydney, Australia in 2000. In the last eight years since it its inception, Amethon has successfully captured the accelerating market for managing content in mobile communications. The company continues to grow by building capacity and technical expertise, attracting investment from EpiCorp and MAP Venture Partners, and winning the Deloitte Fast 50 Rising Star and a RedHerring Asia 100 award for 2007.

Amethon has developed into a premium provider of mobile analytics tools for mobile telecommunications operators with the release of its products Content Fingerprinting in 2006 and Mobile Analytics in 2007.

Amethon's team brings together key industry experience to develop leading edge products and services for the rapidly developing mobile data space. In the competitive and challenging environment of the continually evolving telecommunications sector, Amethon has transformed its leading edge technology into innovative products that are now meeting the demands of mobile operators and content service providers.

Amethon's founder James Cleary has extensive experience in the telecommunications industry and along with CEO, Michael Stone, they bring over 20 years of expertise from working in Asia, Europe, Canada and Australia with major mobile operators, telecommunications equipment vendors and international IT corporations.

The company has offices in Sydney, Melbourne and New York.

Please see www.amethon.com for more information.

For further information, images or for a copy of the report please contact:

Louise Roberts or Pru Quinlan

Einsteinz Communications - for Amethon

T: (02) 8905 0995

M: 0405 579633

Email: louise@einsteinz.com.au or pru@einsteinz.com.au