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Airline industry scores high in mobile Web performance: Gomez

According to the latest Gomez and dotMobi Mobile Web Experience Benchmarks, the airline industry is leading the way in customer satisfaction with mobile Web performance.

Five of the top ten airline companies received excellent scores for their mobile Web performance in May. The Mobile Web Experience Benchmarks from Gomez and dotMobi evaluate and rank experiences on the mobile Web that are provided by the top businesses in three major industries: airline, banking and search.

"Between the high expectations end-users have and the complexities of the mobile web application delivery chain -- not to mention the diversity of mobile browsers and devices -- performance issues aren't just possible, they are likely," said Matt Poepsel, vice president of performance strategies at Gomez, Inc, Lexington, MA.

"Mobile development and operations teams are challenged to find and fix performance issues before they impact users," he said.

"This can only be achieved by testing and monitoring mobile Web applications from an end-user's viewpoint, or from the outside-in, rather than focusing solely on mobile Web infrastructure."

Gomez, a provider of Web application experience management and performance benchmarking, teamed up with dotMobi for this endeavor as it is the company behind the .mobi Web domain that identifies content intended for mobile devices.

The data from the May benchmark also found that mobile Web performance from the top search companies had improved, with three brands awarded top scores.

The evaluations in the Mobile Web Experience Benchmark are measured through five critical dimensions of mobile Web success. The five core metrics are readiness, discoverability, availability, speed and consistency.

Readiness involves how well the mobile site renders on popular mobile phones and devices.

Discoverability measures how quickly a consumer can find the mobile site and using many different URL's.

Availability is the percentage of successful transactions.

Speed, or response time, can be measured by how long it takes to download each page as well as the duration of an entire transaction.

Consistency is the site's ability to render and perform well over many different mobile carriers, handsets along with different geographies and timeframes.

Before receiving the May results, there had been only three companies to reach a score of five bars which means that a company scored at or above average in each of the five core metrics.

In the most recent benchmark in May, eight companies attained the distinction of five bars.

Gomez claims that with the increased popularity of mobile Web, there is less tolerance among consumers for poor performance on mobile sites.

Gomez admits that it's been encouraging to see improvement in industries such as airlines and search; however, the banking industry still has some catching up to do.

The Gomez/dotMobi Mobile Web Experience benchmarks test mobile Web performance over many major wireless networks through a combination of Gomez Web measurement ability and tools from dotMobi.

"For an increasing number of web users -- particularly those in the youngest generation -- the mobile web is the only web," Mr. Poepsel said. "Brands that cater to this market will need to make every effort to ensure that they are meeting their audiences' expectations for fast, rich and successful mobile web experiences.

"And, as mobile commerce becomes more prevalent, it will become increasingly important for businesses to monitor their mobile web applications and receive early alerts if performance issues threaten mobile transactions," he said.