• by Wayne Friedman , June 7, 2007

Now mobile phone users are in the sights of the Nielsen Company.

Nielsen announced it will begin measuring phone users through a new service called Nielsen Wireless, focusing on measuring how many people use content services, such as mobile Internet and mobile video.

The company says the new service complements its Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which intends to measure TV usage on all television and video platforms, including personal video devices such as mobile phones. Nielsen already does some research work on the wireless industry with attitudinal and behavioral surveys and mobile polling.

Under this new mobile-measuring service, Nielsen will launch Mobile Vector next month, taking data from Nielsen's national people meter TV sample to report on media behavior and audience demographics.

Later this year, Nielsen will expand its service to include information about users consumption of mobile media content. Nielsen says it will gain access to this information through wireless industry stakeholders.

Nielsen Wireless estimates that by the first quarter of 2007 more than 33 million persons 12 and older used mobile Web, and more than 8 million persons 12 and older will have viewed some Internet video on their mobile phone.

Concerning the highly sought-after 18-34 users, Nielsen says at least 7% of 18- to-34-year-olds viewed mobile video programming in the first quarter of 2007, while at least 25% used their mobile phone to connect to the Internet. Still, Nielsen says the mobile video audience skews somewhat older and male: 46% are 35 years or older and 54% of the audience is male.

Nielsen says 55% of primary users of video-enabled mobile phones lived in households with total incomes of $75,000 or above.