People are spending more time using mobile apps than they are on the 'real' web, according to a recent analysis from Flurry. It's calculated that US consumers spend an average 81 minutes per day using mobile applications, compared with 74 minutes on desktop or mobile internet browsers.

That's a dramatic change from 12 months ago, when the average user spent 43 minutes a day using mobile applications and 64 minutes using the web.

Informa Telecoms & Media has calculated that 3G femtocells now outnumber conventional 3G base stations.

In fact, its latest report calculates there are more than 2.3 million 3G femtocells around the world compared to 1.6 million conventional 3G base stations.

A new report from Juniper Research predicts the number of mobile Instant Messaging users will exceed 1.3 billion by 2016, which is three times as many as last year's total. The increase is expected to be driven by new services along with the continued growth of existing services.

However, SMS will remain as the primary means of text communication on mobile handsets, according to the report.

Map and location data provider NAVTEQ has published a survey about consumer reactions to mobile advertising within navigation.

Overall, 67% of consumers said they they were happy receiving promotional offers in exchange for free use of their favourite location-related content. Real-time traffic news was seen as the most valuable content for consumers, with 72% of respondents saying they'd use it on a weekly basis.

Nokia has announced a new smartphone based on the MeeGo platform. It's called the Nokia N9 and is due to hit the shops later this year, although availability and pricing are still unconfirmed.

The phone has no front-facing buttons and is designed to be entirely touch-controlled.