Bango has released statistics that show a shift in mobile web traffic, from the mature mobile markets of Europe and the US to the developing markets of China and India. Today, 54% of people surfing the mobile web come from outside the US and Europe, highlighting the importance of well targeted mobile advertising that reaches the intended consumer profile.
The top six countries accessing the mobile web via Bango in January 2008 were the UK at 25%, India at 11%, the US at 10%, South Africa at 8%, Indonesia at 7% and China at 6%. China has risen fast up the mobile web surfing charts from 19th position six months ago to 6th position today. In total, Bango detects mobile web users from over 190 countries.
The stats come as no surprise to Geoffrey Handley, Co-founder of mobile agency Hyperfactory, which operates throughout China and Asia.
For people in China, mobile isnt the third screen; its the first, says Handley. There are hundreds of millions of people who have never seen the Internet on a PC, who are accessing mobile websites every day on their phones. The mobile ad market in China is incredibly dynamic.
Businesses need to be able to target their marketing dollars, says Bango, as different operators in the same country can also have quite different consumer profiles. For example, a visitor whos identified as a T-Mobile subscriber might actually be a subscriber to Virgin which is an MVNO on T-Mobile, but caters to a different demographic.
Bango notes too that mobile marketers also need to be able to measure the success of their marketing campaigns. Bango Analytics delivers mobile focused web stats essential to understanding ROI and which marketing campaigns are most effective. Tracking links can be inserted into the mobile site to identify traffic from advertising campaigns and search keywords. Data collected can quickly be analyzed to determine the return on investment from each campaign.
Bango Analytics operates as a hosted service, allowing mobile website owners anywhere in the world to connect their sites to the Analytics service in minutes and start getting results free of charge.
Theres more information on Bango Analytics here.