Google enjoys summer of mobility

Mobile traffic up 35% over summer months

Posted in Mobile, 23rd August 2007 13:37 GMT

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Google's vice president of search products, Marissa Mayer, has revealed a jump in mobile access to Google's services during May and June; a time when traffic usually drops off as users go on holiday.

Google Maps has done particularly well, with the iPhone launch increasing traffic by almost 50% at the end of June. Google Maps has a huge hey-look-at-this factor, which quickly drops off once all the user's friends have been impressed (or politely pretended to be), so it remains to be seen how much of that traffic is sustainable.

But access to GMail from mobiles also increased over the summer, as well as basic searching. The tens of millions of mobile searches daily are still only a drop in the ocean compared to desktop traffic, but an increasing one; and on a platform that Google, and others, are keen to make their own.

Most of this is down to improved mobile capabilities, as well as better interfaces and improving data charges, the combination of which is starting to make the internet properly accessible on the move.

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