Mobile Internet usage more than doubles in January

Mobile devices are becoming the virtual newspaper.

According to a report released Monday by market researcher comScore, the number of U.S. residents using mobile devices to access news and information more than doubled to 63.2 million in January over the previous year.

"Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of their lives," Mark Donovan, comScore's senior vice president of mobile, said in a statement. "This underscores the growing importance of the mobile medium as consumers become more reliant on their mobile devices to access time-sensitive and utilitarian information."

Applications that can be downloaded to the phone, such as maps, have helped drive the growth in using mobile devices to access news and information, Donovan noted in the report. And text-based searches have also contributed to the rise in popularity of accessing news and information via a phone.

In the U.S., the number of unique mobile phone users who access news and information on a daily business has grown to 22.4 million in January over the previous year. And here's a look at how the categories stack up on a daily usage basis:

(Credit: comScore Inc.)

While news and information accounted for the largest slice of mobile Internet users in January, social networking or blogging grew at an even greater rate, according to comScore.

This category grew more than four-fold to 9.3 million daily mobile unique users, according to the report.

[frappyjohn]

The headline is wrong. Usage didn't double in January; it doubled in the one-year period between January 2008 and January 2009. A correct headline would be "January Mobile Internet usage more than doubles" or "Mobile Internet usage more than doubles for January" or "Mobile Internet usage more than doubles in one year".

[chrisgoswami]

Interesting - but how much of this surge in usage is purely down to the iPhone effect and how much can be ascribed to people with "more ordinary" hansets changing their habits?
Chris Goswami, Openwave