Research participants download an app (available for Android, Apple, BlackBerry and Symbian devices) which passively tracks how they use their phone. The user can turn it off at any time.

The service aims to offer a “complete view” of mobile usage to media and telecoms companies. It can track calls, text messaging, email, apps, music and video, games, web browsing and other device functions such as calendars, alarm clocks and cameras. The passive measurement data can be combined with interviews or diaries to better understand people’s behaviour, and with data on computer usage at home.

Ipsos ran a pilot survey with the technology in the UK earlier this year, tracking 1,200 panelists with the Zokem app. M3 is now available in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Finland, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands.

Syndicated panels will be used to produce trend data, with more than 1,000 participants in each market. Ipsos is guaranteeing a minimum of 300 users every month on each mobile operating system in each country.

As well as being used with dedicated panels to produce trend data, M3 can be used on ad hoc sample or proprietary panel run by a client.

Liz Landy (pictured), managing director of Ipsos MediaCT in the UK, said: “This new integrated solution represents what many of our clients have been asking for: being able to connect with consumers without the barrier of recall and gain direct access and understanding, of their daily lives.”