Mobile Internet use has gained a great deal of popularity over the past year, the most recent report by comScore found. The number of people using their mobile devices to access the Internet has more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009, and the number of people doing this activity on a daily basis has also increased.

The report revealed that almost one third of the people who accessed the Internet from their mobile device in January 2009 did so on a daily basis (22.4 million people out of the 63.2 million mobile Internet users).

“Over the course of the past year, we have seen use of mobile Internet evolve from an occasional activity to being a daily part of people’s lives,” said Mark Donovan, senior vice president Mobile, comScore. This shows the importance of the mobile medium, as consumers begin to rely more on their mobile devices for time-sensitive and utilitarian information, he added.

Furthermore, mobile social networking and blogging are also increasing in popularity, and this phenomenon in general also seems to be stimulated by the increasing number of mobile applications, and by text based searches, he noted.

The report also found that half the young male adults aged 18 to 34 engage in mobile Internet, while 40 percent of females aged 18-24 engage in the same activity.

At the beginning of the year, maps were among the most downloaded applications (by 8.2 million users), while search was one of the most popular SMS-based news and information access (by 14.1 million users).