Google has reported a 20 per cent increase in people using its search tool for mobile phones.

The software is available for Nokia, BlackBerry and also Apple's iPhone, which the company says makes searching the internet on your phone 40 per cent faster.

Matt Waddell, product manager for Google, told Reuters: "We have very much hit a watershed moment in terms of mobile phone usage; we are seeing that mobile internet use is in fact accelerating."

A separate report by M:Metrics, a mobile media measurement company, suggests that 84.8 per cent of iPhone users access the web on their device.

Google is the default search engine for Apple's Safari internet programme, which they say explains Google's rise in figures.

The internet giant has also announced a new software download for mobile phones running Window's mobile.

New software which has been trailed by Blackberry will speed up mobile web browsing, says the company.

It will speed up the opening of a web browser and waiting for network access, so you can get to the Google website quicker.