• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, August 21, 2012

Quick poll, what are the top three search categories on a mobile phone? No, it’s not porn, as the smartass in the audience of the Mobile Insider Summit blurted in response to Kia’s Ryan Wein’s query. It’s actually restaurants. No. 2, Wein said to the audience’s surprise, was automobiles. And No. 3 was consumer electronics.

Wein did not cite the No. 4 category, but I’m guessing it wasn’t porn either – mainly because I don’t think the mobile search indexing gurus actually report that. But Wein’s real point is that there are “mobile consumers on their devices wanting to buy cars.”

How many, you say? According to Wein’s research, 51% of all mobile searches to an auto site result in a purchase, and 49% of them happen in the same day. Holy impulse purchases, Batman!

Wein calls these search queries “mobile moments that matter.” Given those stats, I can understand why.