Mobile Commerce, a UK-based business that provides mobile search services to a number of network operators and other sites, has published an analysis of the words and phrases used when searching on mobile phones. The company handles over 25% of searches from mobile internet users via UK operator portals and deals with 5 billion requests a year across the UK and USA.
Facebook remained the most-searched term in 2012, retaining its number 1 position from last year, while Google held on to second place and YouTube moved up to third. Overall, eleven of last year’s top 20 remained in the list of top search terms.
The highest ‘new entry’ was video service Tubidy; the eighth most-popular mobile search term for 2012. Other brands joining the top 20 were Argos, Amazon, BBC, MSN, Flirtfinder and Sky.
Searching on mobile devices has evolved over the last months, according to Mobile Commerce, with consumers usually omitting ‘www’ and often abbreviating search terms. Instead of searching for ‘Facebook’ and dating site ‘Plenty of Fish’, users may enter fb and pof instead. Popular applications don’t tend to appear in the listing of top search terms because consumers are more likely to search for these within an app store, although generic terms such as ‘games’ and ‘free games’ are often used.
Based on trends during the last two months, Mobile Commerce forecasts that ‘Badoo’, ‘Whatsapp’ and ‘Gumtree’ will be in the top 20 UK mobile search terms for 2013.