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Filipino women lead in accessing mobile internet

THE PHILIPPINES, DECEMBER 12, 2011: In a recent study of mobile internet habits and trends, conducted as part of the annual Yahoo! Net Index 2011, the Philippines stands apart as the only country in Southeast Asia where women (57%) make up a higher proportion of mobile internet users than men (43%). This is contrary to the trend that skews towards male users in Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam and right across the region, growth in mobile internet activity is coming from the youth segment and those from the lower economic groups who use inexpensive handsets (feature phones) bundled with bite-size voice and data plans, for emailing, social networking, instant messaging and search. 
 
Interestingly, home is the most common mobile internet access point (73%), compared to other locations such as a friend´s place, restaurant, school, work and while outdoors shopping, travelling or waiting. Filipino users "snack" content such as facts, trivia, images and graphics while browsing the net and Yahoo! (64%) is the second most frequently visited website on a mobile device, following closely behind Facebook (71%).  
 
The majority of Filipinos are on pre-paid plans (87%) and on average spend a little over USD 13 per month with Globe Telecom holding top position as the most popular service provider. Nokia leads as the most popular handset device (59%) in the Philippines, followed by Samsung (22%), Sony Ericsson (5%) and Motorola (2%). Smartphones such as Apple´s iPhone and Blackberry have a relatively low usage in the country (1%) due to their high cost.   
 
"Accessing the internet on mobile is rapidly growing across Southeast Asia. By and large we see similar trends across the region in terms of use and access at home, the young demography, affordable handsets and bite sized pre-paid data plans all driving mobile Internet growth," stated David Jeffs, Head of Insights for Yahoo! Southeast Asia.
 
In the Philippines, mobile internet is still in its infancy. However, with 90 million mobile phone subscriptions in the country, the Philippines has a high penetration of internet-capable low-cost feature phones and users are increasingly using these as an access device for the Web.
 
Jeffs added, "Telcos rolling out bite sized internet plans by implementing ‘sachet pricing’ can only boost the mobile internet growth curve.  As more and more Filipinos access the web via mobile, this will allow the telcos to achieve economies of scale and bring down their tariffs, in turn adding further stimulus to mobile Internet growth."  
 
Through in-depth consumer insights on the current internet trends, evolving digital landscape and online behaviour, Yahoo! is able to deliver unique and compelling content experiences which in turn create powerful opportunities for advertisers to connect with their target audiences, in context and at scale. The annual Yahoo! Net Index study was conducted in conjunction with Nielsen, one of the world’s leading market research groups.

 

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