A system and method of speech recognition involving a mobile device. Speech input is received (202) on a mobile device (102) and converted (204) to a set of phonetic symbols. Data relating to the phonetic symbols is transferred (206) from the mobile device over a communications network (104) to a remote processing device (106) where it is used (208) to identify at least one matching data item from a set of data items (114). Data relating to the at least one matching data item is transferred (210) from the remote processing device to the mobile device and presented (214) thereon.