ComScore to measure Australian mobile Internet usage

Stuart Corner
Wednesday, 17 March 2010 16:55

IT Industry - Market

Internet measurement company ComScore is ramping up its presence in Australia and hoping to provide accurate data on browsing from mobile phones by taking direct feeds from all mobile networks.

The company has been measuring fixed network Internet usage in Australia for five years using the same method as it does elsewhere in the world: it recruits a panel of users who agree to have ComScore software installed on their machines that reports back to ComScore details of content, source and duration.

However obtaining similar data from the mobile world is much more difficult. ComScore executive vice president, Will Hodgman, told iTWire that, ideally the company would like to replicate in Australia, and elsewhere, the system it has put in place in the UK.

"We worked with the GSMA [the GSM Assocation - a global body representing operators of GSM mobile networks worldwide] who helped us negotiate with the operators. We take anonymously all the operators' subscriber data…It gives us a totally accurate picture. So I can tell you that in January 18,943,037 people in the UK used the mobile Internet in January."

He added: "We would love to do that in Australia, but we have to get all the operators to say yes at the same time. Technically that is easy but it took us three years in the UK." And, Hodgman said, the UK remained the only country in which the company had been able to put in place such an arrangement.

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