For their December report on the State Of The Web, Opera have undertaken research into which sites are most popular on mobile in nations across Europe. Using their findings, they have compiled a list of the top 10 local domains visited from mobiles in each country and the results are quite interesting. Unsurprisingly, news sites are the most popular and make an appearance in the top 10 of every country in the study.
More impressively, this type of site sits at the top of the perch in an astonishing 23 nations and shows the importance of mobile devices in receiving instant news updates. However some countries are more news obsessed than others and it would seem that Croatian and Norwegian residents are infatuated with current affairs, as their top 10 domains consist of a staggering 8 news sites.
The result that I found most surprising is that the UK are not top in terms of visiting sports sites on their mobile, as Cyprus’ top 10 contains 5 sporting sites and this is more impressive than the 2 featured in the UK’s most visited domains. Another fun fact is that Finland and Bulgaria have the most baby advice sites in their top 10 and we need to decide whether or not this implies anything about their parenting ability.
The findings also revealed that Greeks frequently search regarding the weather, which is surprising, and this has meant that a forecasting site sites at position 3 in their top 10. I thought it was only us Brits that were obsessed with the weather and it is surprising that a country with more consistent weather spends more time researching it, at least via their smartphones anyway. One final finding is that Germany is the only country with a recipe site in their top 10 and this begs the question of whether this is caused by inferior culinary skills or greater enthusiasm in the kitchen and less reliance on junk food.
With mobile once again predicted to take off in 2013, is it time that marketers began using research such as this as the basis for their mobile advertising. For example, if you are selling baby products across Europe, then would it make more sense to focus a greater amount of your mobile marketing resources in Finland and Bulgaria? Or if you are looking to conduct mobile advertising for your Europe-wide food products, then could Germany be the ideal place to launch an effective mobile campaign. What are your views?
