Dial M for entertainment, the mobile revolution

(c) The Guardian

The phone company Orange reveals today how its 15 million customers are using their mobiles as entertainment centres for music, videos and games.

The company's first digital media index shows its customers send 872m text messages a month, with most sent between 4pm and 8pm as people plan a night out. Despite being launched five years ago, picture messaging, however, remains something of a niche service with 5.4m sent a month.

Many mobile phones can access the internet - Orange also has more than 2.1 million customers accessing the web each month - as well as downloading games, ringtones and video clips. In the first three months of this year, almost 750,000 games were downloaded on the Orange network, with Sonic the Hedgehog, Worms and Space Invaders (Anniversary Edition) the top three choices.

Gavin Forth, head of entertainment at Orange, said players are split fairly across the gender divide. "The average age of a mobile games downloader is 30 - older than traditionally seen in the games industry," he said.

Part of the reason for the age difference between players on consoles and handsets may be because mobile phones that can easily and quickly access games are usually more expensive or tied to a contract, while the teenage audience tends to use pay as you go phones.

But when it comes to downloading wallpaper, which most phones can do, the picture is very different. About 65,000 images are downloaded by Orange customers every month and scantily clad women dominate the charts.

The most downloaded images in the first three months of this year include a host of female "wrestlers" - known as "WWE Girls" and "WWE Divas". Animal, the exuberant drummer from the Muppets, is also in the top 10 as is the flag of St George. "There's an interesting correlation between the posters that adorn teenagers bedrooms and the wallpaper they download for their phones," said Mr Forth. "Generally, boys download more mobile wallpapers than girls, and your average 16-year-old lad's bedroom wall is plastered with wrestling, girls and film posters ... that's what they're downloading on to their phones as well."

The youth end of the market also seems more taken with downloading songs, with more than 250,000 music tracks, ringtones and music videos downloaded a month. Most activity is in the late afternoon and at the weekend, suggesting the majority of users are children just out of school.

As for mobile video, movie trailers remain the most requested clips, followed by sports clips and what Orange terms "babes". More "adult" content accounts for 4% of mobile video.

Sporting events score high on mobile TV - which is "streamed" live to a handset rather than downloaded to be watched whenever the user wants. Orange's live coverage of the cricket World Cup was the most popular content watched over the first quarter of the year.

"The Live World Cup Cricket channel was only launched in March, but it topped the charts of the highest viewed channel for the entire quarter, said Deborah Tonroe, Orange's head of TV and video. "Clearly, live sport is going to play a key role in the future of mobile television."

Top tens

Video downloads

1 The Simpsons Movie trailer

2 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix trailer

3 Rocky Balboa trailer

4 Creature Comforts for Comic Relief

5 South Park - Earth is a Reality Show

6 Celebrity Big Brother - live stream

7 Hot Fuzz trailer

8 Angry Kid - Love Bites

9 Leona Lewis - A Moment Like This

10 WWE Diva Short - Candice

Music Tracks

1 Chasing Cars - Snow Patrol

2 Grace Kelly - Mika

3 Ruby - Kaiser Chiefs

4 How To Save A Life - The Fray

5 Same Jeans - The View

6 What Goes Around...Comes Around - Justin Timberlake

7 Boogie 2Nite - Booty Luv

8 Alfie - Lily Allen

9 Tell Me - Diddy and Christina Aguilera

10 Put Your Hands Up For Detroit - Fedde Le Grande