Nielsen goes wireless

The Nielsen Company announced plans to begin measuring mobile phone users via a new service called Nielsen Wireless. No, the ratings company is not out to measure phone calls. The service will measure how many people use content services such as mobile Internet and mobile video and what impact this has on established media behavior. 

Nielsen Wireless estimates that in 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 viewed video on their mobile phone (this excludes videos created with a phone's camcorder function).  According to the CTIA (the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry), there are more than 230 million wireless subscriptions in the US. 

Nielsen Wireless is led by Nielsen Vice President Jeff Herrmann, who also leads Nielsen Games, Nielsen's video game measurement service.  Nielsen Wireless is designed specifically for the wireless industry and also complements Nielsen's Anytime Anywhere Media Measurement (A2/M2) initiative, which will measure television usage on all television and video platforms, including personal video devices such as mobile phones.  Nielsen noted that it already supports the wireless industry through customer segmentation, ringtone sales tracking (Nielsen RingScan), attitudinal and behavioral surveys and mobile polling.  Nielsen Wireless will work in tandem with these existing Nielsen services.

Nielsen Wireless' first product - Mobile Vector - will launch in the US in July 2007.  It will use information culled from Nielsen's existing National People Meter TV sample to report on media behavior and audience demographics segmented by wireless carrier.

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