Facebook and other social networking sites are being credited for the huge growth in mobile internet usage over the past 18 months in the UK.

More and more frequently mobile handsets are prefitted with default settings for Facebook, the UK’s most popular Social Network. The popularity of Facebook for mobile is such that 3 launched the INQ1, dubbed by many as ‘The Facebook Phone’. In addition, the huge increase of ‘smart phones’ in the market such as the iPhone have also contributed to the rise of mobile internet usage.

A recent report conducted by CSS Insight confirmed that access to social networking sites was driving the usage and average time spent up of mobile internet services.

The report indicated that up to a third of young people (16 – 35 year olds) regularly access Facebook and Twitter on their mobile. By far the most popular in terms of usage is Facebook, which is used more often than Twitter and Bebo combined.

CCS Insight also predict that 44% of mobile users will access the internet via their handset by the end of 2009. Other recent predictions from Juniper also suggest that mobile application downloads will reach almost 20 billion by 2014.

Another study earlier this year by Lightspeed research for the Internet Advertising Bureau found that in the UK, 25% of social media site users were updating their profiles and pages through their mobile phones.

Source: BBC