eFiles: February 26, 2001

Use of mobile Web services limited ...

Just 7 percent of u.s. adults say they or someone in their households use Internet services accessed via a mobile phone, according to a recent telephone survey of 1,022 randomly selected households done by research company Taylor Nelson Sofres Intersearch, in Horsham, Pa.

Only 4 percent of those surveyed said they use personal digital assistants or handheld PCs to access Web sites. The research also showed that the majority of wireless Web users—nearly 90 percent—use Web-enabled cell phones or PDAs mainly for personal tasks, including making travel arrangements, shopping and paying bills online. The average user was male, aged 18 to 34, with a household income of $100,000 or more.

... but so is the use of wireless content

If use of wireless web services is slow, it may be because there isnt much content out there to access. Zona Research Inc., in Redwood City, Calif., found, in a recent survey of 577 commercial English-language Web sites targeted at wireless users, that just 26 percent of the sites offer consumer-oriented transaction services such as online order configuration, and only 14 percent qualified as wireless portals or other types of user guides to the wireless Web. Only 8 percent of the sites surveyed provided any financial services.

"At present, the wireless Web is largely comprised of company information about the computer, entertainment and hospitality industries," Zona analysts said in a statement on the report.