The GSMA will launch a commercial audited mobile measurement service in the second half of the year, following its year-long study with the UK’s top five mobile operator into mobile audience metrics. The association also reported the results of the study. Conducted in part with comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) and ABC Electronic, it was aimed at surmounting one of the biggest hurdles in mobile advertising: the lack of consistent and transparent standards, or as the GSMA’s director of entertainment and media Henry Stevens calls it, a “common currency” for the industry. The study results, based on anonymous data from the UK’s top portals, will give brands, publishers and agencies access to real, aggregated mobile audience data, which offers insight into the most popular sites, ranked by number of visitors, page impressions, time and duration of visits. Stevens says, “We were able to retain the unique anonymous mobile id [in the study]. You know that a particular device has carried out a certain browsing experience over time, can report what type of individual that that handset represents.”

Highlights of the Report:

—Smooth operators: Operator portals continue to command the lion’s share of mobile audiences in the UK, according to a year-long feasibility study looking into mobile audience metrics conducted by the GSMA and the country’s top five operators. Sixty-eight percent of UK mobile users visit operator portals, while Google (NSDQ: GOOG) comes in as the top off-portal site, and social net Facebook retains users the longest on its site.

—Young audiences: Mobile is confirmed as a “strong youth medium” with 48 per cent of users between 18-34 years old, compared to 40 per cent for the fixed Internet and 29 per cent for the TV audience (source: BMRB’s TGI). Mobile is also more skewed towards men, who represent 63 per cent of total users compared with 53 per cent for the fixed Internet.

—Mobile mornings: Mobile is used consistently throughout the whole day, but the early morning (7-10am) is the key day part for mobile, accounting for 22 percent of total mobile minutes browsed, compared with only 11 percent of total minutes browsed by PC Internet users in the same day part.

—OEM in top ten: The usual suspects form the top ten most visited sites, but Apple (NSDQ: AAPL), Noka, and Sony (NYSE: SNE) Ericsson (NSDQ: ERIC) sites also made an appearanc. In order of appearance the top ten include: Google, Facebook, Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), BBC, Apple, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), Sony Online (including Sony Ericsson), Nokia (NYSE: NOK) and AOL (NYSE: TWX) (including Bebo)