Analytics firm comScore has released results from it’s study into how people use their mobiles for local search. A lot of different companies have been focusing on letting people use their mobiles to find out about and interact with their environs, and comScore has looked at what methods have been most successful.
First off, the overall number of people using their device for local search has grown by 51% between March 08 and March 09. But more specifically, the number of people using their mobile browser to perform those searches is still far ahead of any other method:
It should be noted that by “local content”, comScore means maps, movies, business directories or restaurants.
As you can see there, mobile browsing is the leader by a huge margin – but the growth of SMS and downloadable apps as a local search method has been much larger. While the browser is comfortably in the lead, these two methods are growing fast.
comScore also released a breakdown of the growth of each of those search categories mentioned above. Again, this is from March 08 – 09:
From the release:
“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.
What we think?
It’ll be interesting to see where SMS and apps go from here. Services like Scoot have the disadvantage of not being familiar. People are used to using the on-line web for local search, so it makes sense that they would be attracted to mobile browsers for the same thing. Despite the seemingly unstoppable growth of SMS, I’d be surprised if it became a local search standard – it’s too awkward a medium for refining your query. The growth of search apps, however, could provide serious competition for browser search over time.
