Image from CreativeSpirits

m.Net Corporationhas released the Australian results of their 2008 Worldwide Mobile Data Service (MDS) Study, revealing growth in the number of Australians using their mobile phone for a wider range of products and services.

m.Net Corporation defines MDS as “all the digital data services that you access through your mobile phone excluding voice calls”. This includes purchasing, communications, information and entertainment.

Of the sample group, 53 per cent owned a 3G or 3.5G phone and the most popular modes of bill payment were capped monthly plan (42 per cent), pre-paid (32 per cent) and uncapped monthly plan (14 per cent)

The key findings from the Australian portion of the study, which spoke to 2000 partiipants in NOvemebr last year include:

• 61% had used information type services in the last full month,
• 57% had used entertainment type services,
• 99% had used communication type services and
• 31% had used their mobile phone to make a purchase like movie tickets.
• Those that visited a website increased from 41 per cent in 2007 to 49 per cent in 2008;
• Mobile Internet searches increased from 23 per cent in 2007 to 30 per cent in 2008;
• Take-up of mobile email grew from 26 per cent in 2007 to 34 per cent in 2008;
• 50 per cent of those that used MDS in 2008 used mobile chat, a 120 per cent hike from the previous year;
• Mobile access to financial data jumped 60 per cent from 10 per cent (2007) to 16 per cent (2008);
• Mobile access to social networking grew 50 per cent from 10 per cent to 15 per cent;
• 33 per cent used MDS for over 30 minutes per week, up by 120 per cent from 15 per cent in 2007;
• 64 per cent of Australian respondents were willing to pay more than $10 per month for unlimited mobile data access, up from zero per cent the previous year;
• Australians are becoming more savvy in how they access mobile data, with the proportion of users who typed in a URL dropping from 54 per cent in 2007 to 29 per cent in 2008;
• Australians are beginning to truly recognise and acknowledge how the use of the mobile phone can tie into their everyday lives: 41% of respondents were interested in mobile banking, 44% were interested in the ability to pay for things with their mobile phone and 31% of respondents were interested in using community sites.

Another outcome of the study was that Australians lagged behind American mobile phone users in the intensity of their MDS usage, with US respondents to the global study using a wider range of data services for much longer periods of time than Australians.

m.Net Research Director, Dr Marisa Maio Mackay, explained this a litle more:

Americans are far more intense and active users than Australians and have really embraced mobile data services in the past few years, partly thanks to ‘all you can use’ fixed pricing plans and the resolution of early network issues

She also added:

While Australians have transitioned from a small group of high level users to a medium group of medium level users over many years, the American market has gone from a small group of high level users to a large group of high level users in just a few years

You’d think that local high speed data service access and costs have played a large part in keeping Australia down. And when you consider that the US has traditionally lagged behind Asian markets like Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia you start to get a feel for how far behind the 8-ball our local “service” providers have placed us in the race to be real players in the mobile web.

That having been said, there’s good news there for the next Xumii, Mig33 or Pocketlife with good growth in the local market meaning that Australia is making itself a good test-bed, if not a genuine end-market.