Fresh figures released by the mobile operator body showed that slightly fewer than five million UK mobile users visited Facebook’s mobile site in December.

As many as 16 million unique users spent 4.8 billion minutes online, viewing 6.7 billion pages in December, initial Mobile Media Metrics data revealed.

Facebook was the most popular site with around 5 million visitors, followed by Google with 4.57 million unique users.

O2, Orange and Vodafone portals were visited by 3.7 million, 3.6 million and 3.3 million visitors respectively.

Facebook alone accounted for 2.64 billion page views in December, surpassing Google that stood second with 894.3 million page views.

Others among the top ten sites with highest page views included, Ebay, Flirtomatic and Bebo. Around 70 per cent of the usage was taken up by these ten sites.