Older phone users are biggest mobile web fans

Despite the shudders that will run through anyone old enough to have been familiar with WAP, it seems the mobile internet has come of age and could soon be more popular than surfing on PCs.

According to marketing research company Ipsos' annual The Face of the Web report, mobile internet access is outpacing traditional PC surfing in some areas - and it's a trend that is set to grow.

Ipsos found that 28 per cent of mobile phone owners across the globe have accessed the internet on their mobile handsets, rising to some 40 per cent in the industry's most advanced market, Japan.

Interestingly, the UK is the second hungriest country for the mobile internet, with 29 per cent of us saying we have accessed the web on our phone, while interest in North America has, in contrast, started to flatten.

Ipsos also found that mobile internet use has also made it beyond the early adopter phase and use is picking up among older mobile users, with 27 per cent of phone users aged 35 to 54 going online with their mobile.

Mobile internet access has certainly caught the attention of some of the UK's operators. O2 launched its internet-a-like service, i-mode, last year, while T-Mobile opted for an open approach by selling internet access bundles under the brand Web N Walk.

The mobile web also got its very own top level domain, dot-mobi, last year.