Yellow Pages has indicated that its free smartphone applications popularity has skyrocketed in its first week of release.

Available as a free download from the iPhone ‘App Store’, the application is currently number one in the ‘Lifestyle’ category and number two in the ‘Top 25 free Applications’. The company said that the application has been downloaded and used more than 30,000 times since its launch.

The application’s results come after parent company Sensis’ ‘eBusiness Report’ found mobile internet usage had increased.

Sandeep Baruah, group manager of Yellow Pages online and mobile products, said the findings reinforced the trends Yellow Pages had seen with mobiles.

Baruah commented that it was unsurprising that the most popular searches were for businesses people needed while on the run: florists, pizza outlets, restaurants, taxis, accommodation, doctors, dentists and hairdressers.

“Based on people’s usage of Yellow Pages Mobile, we know that iPhone users view about one and a half times as many business listings than users of other mobile devices and they are twice as likely to place a call to an advertiser once they’ve found what they’re looking for.”

He added Australia’s capital cities represented the most searched areas on Yellow Pages from mobile devices, but usage was spreading to the outer suburbs as internet access via mobile devices increased.

The application provides access to Yellow Pages content and takes advantage of the applications built-in GPS to provide search results based on the user’s location, mirroring ‘Yellow Pages Online’.

It will automatically suggest a list of relevant business categories and return a list detailing address, contact numbers, opening hours, product and service information as well as maps and directions.

Users can click directly on contact numbers from the application to make a call.