@MWC: 5 EU carriers to measure mobile Web traffic with GSMA

The GSM Association and five European carriers are hoping to spur mobile marketing with a common system for measuring activity on the wireless Web.
Orange, T-Mobile International, Telefonica, Vodafone and 3 are behind an effort to share “anonymized” user data with the industry association in an effort to “allow brands, publishers and agencies to access rich, aggregated user-behavior data, enabling comparison to other media.” The initiative aims to provide visibility regarding the most popular mobile Web sites as well as demographic information and behavioral tracking.
The group’s initial study of U.K. operators found that Google owned the second-most popular destinations on the mobile Web, behind carrier portals, and Facebook ranked third. Early-morning traffic accounted for nearly one-quarter of total mobile minutes browsed, and 48% of users were between the ages of 18 and 34.
“Mobile will never rally scale if it remains fragmented,” said Henry Stevens, who oversees mobile marketing for the GSM Association. “There is a well-established understanding now that there are things that operators just need to do together, and mobile marketing is clearly one of those areas.”
The GSMA worked with comScore/M:metrics on the recent feasibility study, and the commercial launch of an audited mobile measurement service is expected in the second half of this year. Analysts believe a lack of granular data and advertisers’ ability to determine ROI in wireless have hindered mobile marketing, which has yet to gain traction with mainstream consumers on either side of the Atlantic.
While such collaboration seems far-fetched among U.S. carriers – which are noted for an inability to play well together – Stevens said ramped-up traffic on the wireless Web will benefit every player in the value chain.
“It’s not about those parts of the business where operators compete,” Stevens observed, “it’s about operators as ISPs. They all benefit as people start to browse the Internet on a mobile device.