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Bango has released statistics that show that the United States use of the mobile Web has increased three fold in the last year, making it second only to the UK.

They say the popularity of mobile search is the reason for the rise in mobile Web usage. Bango says that the top five countries accessing the mobile Web in April 2007 are the UK at 27 percent, the U.S. at 21 percent, South Africa at 11 percent, India at 9 percent and Indonesia at 3 percent.

In the first quarter of 2007 the most popular handset was Sanyo Katana SCP 6600, which is only available in the U.S. reflecting the strong growth in mobile surfing by U.S. mobile users. Other popular handsets were the Motorola V360, the Sony Ericsson K750i and the Samsung A900.

"We see that wherever flat-rate data charges are pervasive in a country then there's much more web browsing," said Anil Malhotra, SVP of Marketing at Bango. "We expect to see more competitively priced flat-rate data plans in the US which will stimulate further web browsing."

Bango has also seen an increase in the amount of mobile surfers coming from India. There has been a 4 percent increase in visits to mobile sites from India in the past year. Mobile Web usage in India is on pace to exceed European levels within the next few years.

"What we're seeing through these numbers is a transformation of the internet from something connected to a desktop to something mobile," said Malhotra. "With the advent of mobile search that transformation is happening on a truly global scale."