The GSM Association (GSMA) and a task force comprising Telefnica, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile International and 3, have released the results of a feasibility study examining mobile audience metrics. The GSMA says the findings will enable media and advertising agencies, brands and publishers to deliver better mobile advertising campaigns. The study, part of the GSMAs Mobile Media Metrics programme, has created a measurement process for mobile browsing that respects the privacy of mobile users and provides planning information for the media and advertising communities.
The results of the study, based on a sample of anonymised data from UK mobile operators, reveal that operator sites continue to command the largest audiences, with 68% of UK mobile users visiting operator portals. Google is the top off-portal destination and Facebook is the top mobile site by time spent browsing, with other social networking sites featuring strongly. In addition to the top sites, a total of 167,648 mobile Internet sites have been measured during the feasibility study.
The Top 10 Mobile sites are as follows:

1. Mobile operator sites
2. Google sites
3. Facebook.com
4. Yahoo! sites
5. BBC sites
6. Apple sites
7. Microsoft sites
8. Sony (including Sony Ericsson)
9. Nokia
10. AOL (including Bebo)

The study also compares mobile web browsing behaviour with the carried out on the PC. For example, mobile users accessing Facebook spend an average of 24 minutes per day on the site, similar to the 27.5 minutes spent by PC users. Mobile users on Facebook averaged 3.3 visits per day, compared to 2.3 visits per day by PC users.
Mobile is used consistently throughout the whole day, but the early morning (7-10am) is the key day part for mobile, accounting for 22% of total mobile minutes browsed, compared with only 11% of total minutes browsed by PC Internet users in the same day part. Based on this insight, the GSMA says that mobile can act as an extension to media such as the Internet and TV, while reinforcing other early morning media, such as radio and newspapers.
The GSMA says that the real value of the research comes in the combination of aggregated site popularity and user behaviour data with independently collected demographic information, which enables more effective targeting of campaigns. Mobile is confirmed as a strong youth medium, with 48% of users aged between 18 and 34, compared to 40% for the fixed Internet and 29% for the TV audience (source: BMRBs TGI). Mobile is also more skewed towards men, who represent 63% of total users, compared with 53% for the fixed Internet.
Access to transparent measurement is essential in establishing mobile as a legitimate advertising medium, says GSMA CEO Rob Conway. This programme will help take the guesswork out of mobile for brands, publishers and agencies. For the first time, the advertising community has access to real, aggregated mobile audience data, which offers insight into the most popular sites, ranked by number of visitors, page impressions, time and duration of visits. This will enable better planning of marketing campaigns, and in turn, will accelerate sales of mobile advertising inventory.
In producing the study, the GSMA worked with comScore as its measurement partner and ABC Electronic its media audit partner, as well as key industry stakeholders including JICWEBS and its member associations. The next phase of the programme will see the commercial launch of an audited mobile measurement service, expected in the second half of 2009. The GSMA will establish three further working groups, one each for advertisers, media and advertising agencies, and publishers. These working groups will confirm the measurement and reporting needs of the media industry, gather support for the proposed measures as a common currency for mobile audience measurement, and establish how best to integrate this valuable information into existing cross-media business processes and tools.
The inititiave has been broadly welcomed. Guy Philippson, CEO of the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) UK, says:
Robust audience data is vital to the success of any medium, and Mobile Media Metrics represents a huge step forward for the industry. Once media planners start using the research to justify mobile advertising on schedules, we can expect to see the medium grow with well targeted, cross-network campaigns.