Peggy Salz is reporting, based on several mobile search vendor interviews (in this case JumpTap), that average search numbers per month have increased -- at least in the case of one of JumpTap's customers -- from 7.3 per month in January of 2007 to 11 per month in May of 2008.

The numbers in terms of search volumes, however, are all over the map. Nielsen Mobile previously reported an average of 9 searches per month for Google mobile users and 6.7 for users of Yahoo oneSearch.

We've just pulled consumer data from the market that shows surprisingly frequent mobile search behavior (from a subset of a larger sample, not necessarily representative of the mobile market as a whole). In our survey the average number of searchers among mobile search engine users -- a subset of overall mobile subscribers -- was 11 per week (per week)! I'm cautious about generalizing, but it's likely a leading indicator of where the market is headed in the near term regarding frequency and volumes.

Voice search companies such as ChaCha and Tellme (Microsoft) are seeing higher than industry average search volumes as well based on their voice interfaces and the reduction in "friction" in those contexts. Tellme told me the other day that 70% of its search queries are via the voice interface vs. its text box. V-Enable has varying numbers comparing voice query volumes to keyboard entry, based on phone type.

One of the leading mobile portals told me informally months ago that among some power users the company was seeing as many as 9 searchers per day. And ChaCha reports more than 30 per month on average. So there are a range of variables and experiences here that make generalizing difficult. 

But what these various numbers indicate is that mobile search -- which comprises a range of utilities and applications (411, SMS, WAP, apps) -- are growing perhaps faster than expected.