The number of people looking for local information on a mobile device grew 51 percent from March 2008 to March 2009, according to comScore.
The mobile browser is the most popular access method for finding local information, with 20.7 million users in March 2009, up 34 percent over a year ago. The strongest growth in the category is coming from downloaded applications, which grew 83 percent compared to a year ago, followed by SMS at 72 percent.
Despite the attention mobile applications have received from developers, carriers and device manufacturers, they remain the least popular way for mobile access of local information, with 11.4 million users in March. A marginally more often used way for obtaining local information is SMS, with 11.7 million users, and a solid 72 percent growth rate. Still the most popular way to access local content remains the mobile browser.
“Given the explosion in application stores and associated marketing efforts, along with the growth in mobile phones using faster data networks, it would not be surprising within the next six months to see the number of people using downloadable applications surpass SMS for the accessing of local information via mobile devices,” said Serge Matta, comScore senior vice president.
Among the variety of local content categories, the number of people accessing online directories has seen the largest increase during the past year (73%), followed by restaurants (70%), maps (63%) and movies (60%).
