Third of French mobile users connect to web weekly - study

Some 11.4 million people in France use their mobile phones to surf the internet at least once a week, according to an annual study conducted at the end of January by WPP media buying and internet content subsidiary GroupM. This represents a third of all mobile phone users, versus fewer than a quarter in 2010. Half of mobile phone owners have connected at least once to the internet (51%) compared with 40 percent a year earlier. The report produced for telecom operator SFR's advertising branch, SFR Regie, also found that the number of customers on an unlimited mobile internet access plan rose to 26 percent in the latest study, up from 10 percent two years earlier. Among under 24 year-olds, one-third connect to the mobile internet daily. They now go online wireless 3.4 times a day, on average, up from 1.6 in the January 2010 study. Among overall mobile internet users, the average number of visits per day and apps used are 4.8 and 4.1 respectively. Mobile app ownership level doubled in one year to 20.6 free apps and 3.2 pay apps. The top five categories are media (17%), practical information, weather, traffic (16%), social networks (13%), utility apps (11%), games (9%), cards (6%) and bank accounts (4%). About 25 percent of mobile internet users go online while watching TV in the evening and 22 percent to find information about what they are listening to, reading or watching. A quarter of mobile internet users have bought something with their handset. Music is the most popular type of online purchase (38%), then comes games (36%), car rental, train and plane tickets (34%), hotel or restaurant reservations (31%), event or cinema tickets (28%), and clothes, shoes and accessories (26%). By far the greatest usage of the mobile internet is video viewing, having been done by 81 percent of all mobile internet users, or 9.2 million people. Some 37 percent do so at least weekly, compared to 43 percent watching videos on a computer. The main sources for videos viewed on mobiles are dedicated platforms like Youtube and Dailymotion (65%) and streaming TV (50%).