Mobiles drive Net Wi-Fi action
p2pnet.net News:- The number of Wi-Fi users in 2004 grew by 29% – but devices such as mobile phones, and not laptops, were behind the surge.
Japan and the Advancing markets saw the largest year-over-year growth among adults who used hooked into the Net via Wi-Fo connections, but “wireless population” growth was largely driven by the two biggest Internet markets, the US and Japan, “fuelling 69% of user increase and adding an estimated 15 million and 11.6 million new wireless Internet users, respectively,” says a new Ipsos study.
Wireless Net also gained some popularity in Western Europe, South Korea, and Urban China.
“The number of adults who used a laptop for connecting to the Internet wirelessly was smaller compared to those who used a device like a mobile phone,” states the report, going on:
“In Japan, for instance, where wireless Internet, laptop, and mobile phone prevalence is highest, twice as many adults (59%) have accessed the Internet through a mobile device such as a mobile phone than have used a wireless laptop connection (28%).”
Similarly, outside of North America, Germany, and Urban Mexico, mobile devices like mobile phones are propelling wireless Internet use.
Proof of the trend toward data-driven applications via devices such as a mobile phone can be found in the kinds of features that mobile phones have, states Ipsos, pointing out that in the 12 markets analyzed, “close to half of the mobile phone handsets have email or Internet browsing capability.
“Mobile phones have reached a turning point, evolving from primarily a voice communication device to a popular multimedia tool emphasizing data applications. Similarly, SMS may have been the growth vehicle for non-voice applications on a mobile phone in recent years.”
But Net-based applications are the wave of the future, says the study.
- One in three mobile phone households (estimated 175 million) has exchanged email via the mobile phone
- One in four (estimated 124 million) has browsed the Internet
- One in four (estimated 123 million) has exchanged digital image/video
- One in five has conducted Instant Messaging
- One in five has played a video game
Wi-Fi multi-media on the Rise
With the exception of SMS and ring tone download activity, 2004 saw a year-over-year increase in Wi-Fi activities across the board, Ipsos continues.
Email usage grew by 21%, “though exchanging video and pictures and browsing the Internet saw more than double that growth, pointing toward the tipping over of this traditionally audio or text based instrument to a multimedia engagement gizmo.”
Ipsos predicts 2005 will be a spring-board year for the wireless Net via mobile phones as 3G service offers reach more markets, and the price of the service and 3G subsidies offer opportunities for adoption of these services among the broader populations in many markets.
“The mobile phone’s power in shaping the wireless Internet evolution can be demonstrated by the number of Internet-user households that own a mobile handset – currently, the majority (88%),” it says. “The study found that Internet users are likely to have greater data driven functionality on their mobile handset than non-Internet users, validating the growing need and desire for a complement to wired Internet access while on the go.”
And, “Gone are the days of a single shared mobile phone within a household; two-thirds of the households surveyed in the Ipsos study own two or more mobile phones,” adds the report.
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