Mobile social networking tops 4 million users in U.S.

More than 4 million U.S. wireless subscribers--1.6 percent of the total U.S. mobile consumer population--now access social networks via mobile device, according to a new study released by media research firm The Nielsen Company. Nielsen finds the U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking percentage, with 1.7 percent of British mobile subscribers (roughly 810,000 of all subs) visiting social communities during the first quarter of 2008. By comparison, only 0.8 percent of Spanish wireless subs (291,000 consumers) access social networks via the mobile web, followed by Italy at 0.6 percent (293,000 subscribers), France at 0.6 percent (255,000 subs) and Germany at just 0.2 percent (141,000 subs).

Nielsen adds that in the U.S., MySpace.com is the most popular mobile social networking site, logging 2.8 million unique mobile users in December 2007 while rival Facebook enjoyed 1.8 million unique mobile visitors. However, in the U.K., Facebook leads all mobile social networking sites with 557,000 unique mobile users per month in the first quarter, followed by MySpace with 211,000 unique mobile users. Facebook and MySpace.com dominated most other European markets as well, although MSN's Windows Live Spaces led in Italy with 154,000 unique mobile users per month.

For more on the Nielsen study:
- read this release

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