Consumers are becoming even more mobile, and they are taking their activity to the streets. According to recent Nielsen Company research, a growing number of mobile phone subscribers are taking online social networks with them wherever they go, increasing the demand for mobility solutions.

Released by Nielsen Mobile (News - Alert), these findings reveal that the U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking on a percentage basis, with the U.S. boasting comparable numbers.

Roughly 810,000 users in the U.K., or 1.7 percent of all mobile subscribers in the country, visited social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That percentage was twice as high as it was in other major European markets.

In the U.S., 1.6 percent of all mobile subscribers, or 4.1 million in all, accessed social networks through their phones in December of 2007. In Italy, 0.6 percent or 293,000 accessed mobile social networks; 0.8 percent or 291,000 in Spain showed activity; 0.6 percent or 255,000 accessed sites in France; and Germany had 0.2 percent or 141,000.

In the U.S. MySpace (News - Alert).com is the most popular mobile Internet social networking site as it logged 2.8 million unique users in December 2007. Facebook, the second most popular site, had 1.8 million unique mobile users in the U.S., yet led the social networking sites in the U.K.

Facebook (News - Alert) and MySpace.com proved to be among the top social networking sites in other European countries during the first quarter of 2008, while MSN’s Windows Live Spaces led in Italy and France with 154,000 and 106,000 unique mobile users per month, respectively. MySpace.com dominates in Germany with 52,000 unique mobile users per month.

"Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and going mobile is the next big thing," said Jeff Herrmann (News - Alert), vice president of Mobile Media at Nielsen Mobile, in a Thursday statement. "In the U.K. and the U.S. especially, we already see millions of users of MySpace.com, Facebook and other social networks interacting with their virtual spaces while they're on the go.”

 

“Consumer demand for mobile social networking may be a significant driver of mobile service pricing models as evidenced by Vodafone UK's recent move to offer unlimited Internet access as a standard feature of its new monthly mobile price plans," Hermann added.

Social networking sites have certainly taken to the streets and this phenomenon will create more pressure for sites such as Facebook and MySpace.com to create environments where social networking in a mobile capacity provides the same experience as if on the PC with customization and personalization a priority. Such approaches will ensure that these sites can continue to enjoy their leading positions.