BARCELONA, SPAIN: The GSMA and a task force comprising Telefonica, Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile International and 3, unveiled the results of a feasibility study examining mobile audience metrics that would enable media and advertising agencies, brands and publishers to deliver better mobile advertising campaigns.

The study, part of GSMA’s Mobile Media Metrics programme, created a measurement process for mobile browsing that respected the privacy of mobile users and provided rich planning information for the media and advertising communities.

Rob Conway, CEO, GSMA, said: “Access to transparent measurement is essential in establishing mobile as a legitimate advertising medium. 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.”

Top Sites
Based on a sample of anonymised data from UK mobile operators, the study revealed that operator sites continued to command the largest audiences, with 68 percent of UK mobile users visiting operator portals. Google emerged the top off-portal destination and Facebook the top mobile site by time spent browsing, with other social networking sites featuring strongly. 

Top Mobile Sites vs. Top Internet Sites, December 2008

UK Mobile Phone Users (sample of UK Operators) and UK Internet Users

Top 10 Mobile Sites                             Top 10 PC Internet Sites

1  Mobile Operator Sites                              Google Sites

2  Google Sites                                             Microsoft Sites

3  Facebook.com                                         Yahoo! Sites

4  Yahoo! Sites                                            Facebook.com

5  BBC Sites                                                 EBay

6 Apple Inc. Sites                                        BBC Sites

7  Microsoft Sites                                         AOL (inc. Bebo)

8  Sony Online (inc. Sony Ericsson)             Amazon Sites

9  Nokia                                                       Ask Network

10 AOL (inc. Bebo)                                      Wikimedia Foundation Sites

Source:  GSMA Mobile Media Metrics; comScore Media Metrix (PC data)