UK users enjoy the walled garden

In a revelation that will surely warm the cockles of the UK’s mobile operators, findings by research house M:metrics suggest that UK smartphone users are more likely to browse within the walls of their operator’s mobile portal than step out of the garden.

The research house studied the browsing behaviour of smartphone owners in the UK and US and compiled a top ten list of sites visited. Not one cellular operator makes the US top ten. While in the UK, four out of the top five mobile ops are placed.

Vice president of product development and senior analyst at M:metrics, Paul Goode, told telecoms.com that the reason for the trans-Atlantic disparity was probably down to a series of factors.

“In Europe there has been a lot of work done first with Microsoft to customise the smartphones to go to the operator portals and then latterly Symbian has had to respond to that and has done a lot more customisation work to drive consumers straight on to the operators’ portals,” Goode said.

“The US market is more weighted to Windows users than the European market. So maybe Windows users are more likely to browse. The other thing is that the smartphone market in the UK has a higher penetration and therefore is relatively less early adopter, therefore people are more likely to accept what comes with the handset, as oppose to people in the US who will go where they want to,” said Goode.