According to surveys conducted by ABI Research in 2007 and 2008, 70% of respondents used their mobile phones to access information through Internet search engines last year, representing a substantial 14% increase over 2007.
Some types of content accessed via mobile phones rose in popularity from 2007 to 2008 — including news, game downloads, music downloads, and especially video downloads. A significantly lower percentage in 2008 reported downloading a ringtone than the prior year, while the interest in location information, social networking and sports remained about the same.
Commenting on the findings, ABI’s senior analyst Jeff Orr said: “Use of the mobile phone goes well beyond voice calls. A significant percentage of respondents say they use their handset for mobile email and web access, reflecting the broader access to inexpensive or all-you-can-eat mobile data services in the US.”
The surveys, each of which sampled more than 1000 mobile phone users in the United States aged 14-59 and across a wide range of demographic profiles, were conducted in November 2007 and December 2008. As a result, ABI prepared a report titled “US Mobile Email and Mobile Web Access Trends” and you can find out more about it from this page.