BOSTON -- Thirty-two mobile phones are sold worldwide every second. In contrast, four babies are born around the globe every second. Vodafone's Alexandre Froment-Curtil was making a point at the Mobile Internet World show on the mobile phone's raging popularity.

The head of Vodafone live! and Mobile Internet at Vodafone Group Marketing, in his operator's-view keynote address Nov. 15, spouted even more statistics: 800 million PC users worldwide, 1 billion Internet users and 3 billion mobile users, which is expected to jump 33 percent to 4 billion in 2010.

"Mobile is going to increasingly transform the Internet instead of the other direction," Mr. Froment-Curtil told the audience of mostly mobile technologists at the Yankee Group-organized conference.

Operators such as Vodafone, Telefonica and Verizon have a role to play in this bullish mobile Internet environment, he said. Other players include IP giants such as Google and Microsoft as well as original equipment manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung and Apple.

In June Vodafone offered full Internet experience to mobile customers in nine countries. This move away from the walled-garden, on-deck approach still favored by many mobile carriers was based on a simple premise.

"We don't call it mobile Internet," Mr. Froment-Curtil said. "We call it the Internet on the mobile."

That line of thinking -- one Internet with multiple touch-points -- led to several deals with key online companies. Vodafone partnered with Google for search and allied with Web 2.0 sites such as MySpace and YouTube as well as local services.

The carrier also offered a simplified data package to customers, one based on monthly bundles and the other a la carte.

KISS
Vodafone learned many lessons since the full Internet experience was offered on mobile phones in June. The company doubled the number of unique URLs, or Web addresses, accessed through its mobile phones. There was a three-fold increase in traffic. The frequent use of URL bookmarks was noticed, too.

Also, the number of searches increased, thus proving the importance of discovery tools. Somewhat mirroring computer-based behavior, adult searches topped the list at 22 percent, followed by community at 21 percent and downloads at 18 percent.

"As an operator, we need to seriously be concerned about child-protection standards," Mr. Froment-Curtil said. "[But] there is genuine customer demand for more communication. It's not only about searching or discovering on the Web, it's also about content."

Vodafone also observed other useful behavior with its customers. There was a high uptake of pre-embedded applications. Consumption of local content and services such as Dailymotion and Startpagina.nl was high. Users were more into finding information rather than browsing.

Equally important, customers showed their clear preference for simplified choices in mobile service offerings and friendly user interfaces -- not currently a strong suit for most mobile carriers.

"Customer requirements are much heavier on mobile than on the PC," Mr. Froment-Curtil said. "It's all about simple choices."