Google says Internet usage by Mobile phone users on the rise

Submitted by Ritu on March 25, 2008 – 3:16 pm

Google claims that the company has noted a rise in Internet activity among mobile phone users in recent months since the company has introduced faster Web services on selected phone models.

Google has noted a sharp increase in Internet usage on phones from services it has begun offering in recent months on Blackberry e-mail phones, Nokia devices for multimedia picture and video creators and business professionals and the Apple iPhone.

“We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile Internet usage,” Matt Waddell, a product manager for Google Mobile, said in an interview. “We are seeing that mobile Internet use is in fact accelerating.”

Google introduced a new software download for mobile phones running Microsoft Corp’s Windows Mobile software posts a Google Web search window on the home screen of such phones.

Users of phones based on software from Research in Motion, Nokia’s Symbian-based phones and now Microsoft Windows Mobile can download the software at mobile.google.com/

Microsoft expects to have sold 20 million Windows Mobile devices by the end of its fiscal year in June, which together with Blackberry and Symbian-based phones represent upward of 85 percent of the Internet-ready smartphones sold in the world.