Smartphone Users Are Gobbling Up Mobile Content

A new mobile Internet use report reveals a surging consumer appetite for content on handheld devices. No shocker there. A bit more surprising is the speed with which the device landscape has diversified, forcing marketers to grapple with more complexities in how they plan mobile campaigns.

In 2009, mobileʼs share of Web consumption jumped 110 percent in North America and 148 percent globally. That sounds like a lot, but mobile page views still only represented 1.3 percent of all North American browser traffic in December, according to Quantcast’s tabulations. The firm expects mobile to gain a full percentage point next year, though the definition of what is mobile will become more complicated in 2010 with the addition of tablets and perhaps other hybrid laptop/mobile devices.

Among device makers, Apple continues to dominate, though its market share has declined as other smart phones have hit the market. Google’s Android OS has seen the biggest surge. Android devices grabbed over 12 percent of North American mobile web pageviews in December, overtaking RIM’s Blackberry.

Tantalizingly, the report also details some unknown devices that have triggered the pixels Quantcast uses to gauge audiences — presumably the result of internal teams trying out the phones Web features. These are the upcoming handhelds Quantcast says it has spotted in the wild:

-Numerous Motorola models including the Sholes Tablet (aka XT701), Opus One, Zeppelin and Motus

-HTC Espresso, Bravo, Paradise, Liberty, Legend and Photon

-SonyEricsson X3 (aka SO-01B, Rachael), X4 (aka Robyn) and Susan

-A mysterious trio of new Blackberry devices with codenames picked from the BBC’s Doctor Who — Tardis, Davros and Jasper.

Several have been reported already, such as the Sholes Tablet, the HTC Espresso, and the SonyEricsson X3. The Blackberry models, to my knowledge, have not. (Download the Quantcast report)