M:Metrics reported that Yahoo! leads in the "battle of portals" for the mobile domain - 6.7% of US mobile subscribers accessed Yahoo! branded services compared with 4.4% for second-place AOL in December 2005.
M:Metrics found that Yahoo! is the most popular mobile content brand.
During the quarter ended December 2005 12.8 million U.S. mobile subscribers accessed Yahoo's services in an average month - 4 million more than second-place AOL.
MSN and Google follow, with about 7 million subscribers accessing their mobile offerings each month during the fourth quarter.
AOL owes its second-place position to its strength in mobile instant messaging (IM). About 89 percent of its mobile reach is comprised of users of AIM service.
Yahoo! users are more likely to access other services, such as news, maps and search in addition to Yahoo IM, which is used by 73 percent of those who used Yahoo! branded services.
"AOL owes its strong position in the mobile domain to its ability to provide seamless access to AIM buddy lists on handsets through an elegantly designed service and its strong relationships with mobile carriers," observed Mark Donovan, vice president, products and senior analyst at M:Metrics.
In mobile search as a single category Google remained in front of Yahoo!, who both dominated the other players.
The account of activities that US subscribers did on their phones shows clearly the rising trend of consumption of mobile content and applications in the US - which means big business:
Percent US Mobile Subscribers (and Change in December 2005)
- Sent or Received Text Message 33.32% (up 4.6%)
- Retrieved News and Information Via Browser 10.15% (up 0.1%)
- Purchased Ringtone 9.66% (up 7.3%)
- Used Photo Messaging 9.29% (up 9.4%)
- Used Personal E-mail 7.35% (up 9.4%)
- Used Mobile Instant Messenger 6.32% (up 10.5%)
- Used Work E-mail 4.31% (up 12.8%)
- Purchased Wallpaper or Screensaver 3.92% (up 8.5%)
- Downloaded Mobile Game 3.31% (up 6.5%)
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