JetBlue had the fastest loading mobile-website homepage among 48 transportation, technology, retail and mobile carriers in a new Yankee Group study.
The study, Best of the Anywhere Web [pdf], found that JetBlue's homepage loads in 4.11 seconds, compared with 4.52 seconds for Facebook, 6.12 seconds for Walmart and 22.59 seconds for Sprint, for example. [You can access a Webinar about the study here.]
Among airline and rail mobile websites analyzed in the transportation sector, JetBlue tied for first with rail lines Amtrak and Bay Area Rapid Transit. The three notched scores of 73 out of 100. The Metropolitan Transit Authority was second with 72 and the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority was third with a 71 score.
Only 16 of the 48 companies studied received passing scores and JetBlue was the only airline to do so. The other airlines in the study were British Airways, Southwest, Delta, US Airways, Northwest, American, United and Continental. Orbitz was also included and the only online travel agency scrutinized, but didn't receive a passing grade for its mobile website.
In a switch from the most recent prior study, in 2008, the rail lines -- Metropolitan Transit Authority, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, Chicago Transit Authority, Amtrak and BART -- as a group scored better than the airlines in the 2010 study.
American Airlines was the best in the transportation category in the 2008 study, but Yankee Group says airlines as a whole haven't kept pace with the evolution of mobile websites.
The study measured the availability of mobile website pages, and how fast and how much data they downloaded.
Among 12 technology companies in the study, Google ranked first [81], Bing second [70] and AOL third [69]. Further down in the mix were Facebook, YouTube, Epson, Canon, Brother, Yahoo, Dell, Microsoft and Sony.
Key lessons from the Yankee Group study?
- Companies need mobile websites -- they are no longer mere differentiators.
- Previously wireless networks may have been a bottleneck for mobile websites, but today the server infrastructure is a make or break component.
- Mobile websites must have automatic device detection to gain consumer eyes and loyalty.
- By 2011, when Yankee Group plans to conduct its next mobile website study, the company forecasts that location detection will be a feature in all websites that get to the top of its rankings.