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A surge in the popularity of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace is fuelling the growth of the mobile internet, says telecoms industry analyst Juniper, which predicts growth in the ‘mobile web 2.0’ sub-sector from $5.5 billion this year to $22.4 billion (£11.3 billion) by 2013.

Continued growth in the mobile subscriber base, particularly in developing markets, and the increasing penetration of ‘3G’, enabling greater data speeds, are acting as major drivers for the adoption of mobile web services. This mirrors the development of internet-based companies in recent years, where increasing broadband penetration has allowed more complicated applications such as video and complicated social networking sites to proliferate.

Juniper says mobile phones are particularly suited to taking these applications to the next stage of development as they contain a huge amount of personal data, [making] it a logical extension for the social network and the host of other collaborative Web 2.0 applications gaining traction.’

AIM-listed players in this space include Bango, Win, 2ergo and Broca. The lion’s share of revenues in this new subsector will come from services, although mobile advertising ‘represents a significant opportunity’, according to analyst Ian Chard. He adds that mobile network operators will have to adjust to advertising-sponsored strategies and accommodate partnerships with web-based players, while device manufacturers and technology vendors must find the means to consolidate a highly fragmented market.