British surfers flock to mobile phone websites

Websites about mobile phones are the fastest growing online sector in terms of UK visitors, according to a Nielsen survey.

There was a 58 per cent increase in unique UK visitors - from 7.7 million in July 2008 to 12.2 million in July 2009.

All the top company websites showed big UK growth in terms of traffic, with a big 203 per cent increase in visitors to Nokia, a 91 per cent increase for Vodafone, and a 79 per cent increase for O2.

Nielsen said that one of the biggest factors in the growth of traffic was the mobile phone directory 119-800, launched amid much controversy in June after privacy concerns.

The following month, it was the 11th most visited web brand in the UK with almost two million unique UK users, but due to the controversy is now offline.

Other mobile phone websites that did well were websites that buy mobile phones for cash such as Envirofone.com (429 per cent growth), and Mazuma Mobile (357 per cent growth).

For more mobile phone news and reviews, visit Know Your Mobile.