Mobile Market Trends

By 2013 Gartner predicts that the total number of smart-phones and browser-enabled devices will be higher than total  PCs in use (1.82billion Vs. 1.78 billion units globally worldwide).
If we look at he Japanese market we can get an idea of where we are heading.It has much higher mobile Internet penetration than the US or Europe. For example,McDonald's Japan mobile site has over 16 million registered users – that's more than 12% of the Japanese population, and its mobile coupon service (two years old) is used by 4.5 million.
 The growth in Japan was fostered by the mobile operators (like DOCOMO & NTT). Some of the key reasons for their success are:

• 75 percent of Japanese mobile data users are on flat-rate plans so no scares when the bill arrives!
• Japanese mobile network operators only take 10 percent of content revenues generated via their mobile portals (which are massive). Billich believes Apple, Nokia etc charge up to 30 percent, while some Western operators charge 50 percent or more.*

Many Western publishers e.g. Reuters are switching from SMS alerts to email and moving as much of their traffic off portal as possible to save on operator fees.

Market Size

Smartphone users in the UK downloaded over 860m applications in 2010, including 105m downloads of paid apps. Revenue from paid-for apps totalled £280m. However, there were 757 million free apps downloaded (almost 90% of the total). In Ireland there has been over 8 million apps downloaded.^^
This year, consumers’ expectations of value for money will push down pricing for all forms of mobile content and services, but greater overall consumption will generate increasing revenues.These are some of the findings of a new report from research2guidance in the UK ^.
They believe there is still plenty of room for growth, as the majority of mobile users still have feature phones, and do not use apps as actively as smartphone users. In the years to come this potential will be explored and will drive up market growth. The research also reveals that young females show the highest dynamics of device adoption in 2010. At the current rate of growth, female smartphone adopters will catch up with their male counterparts within a year.

Mobile integration Ireland /UK

Here are some stats on how the top websites in Ireland and the UK are successfully integrating the power of Mobile technologies into their strategic development goals to create further consumer reach.

• 70% of the Top 20 websites in Ireland have an Application in the Apple App Store

• 55% of these have also developed their websites to render specifically for mobile devices

• 60% of the Top 10 websites in the UK, which don't feature on the Irish list, have an Application in the Apple App Store

• 40% of these have also developed their websites to render specifically for mobile devices

 
           See the full list of the websites here.

What are people using their mobiles for?

The most popular activities on the mobile Web are mobile search, reading news and sports information, downloading music and videos, and email and instant messages. In the future, money transfer; location-based services; m-health and m-payment will be key drivers.*
When designing a mobile site, it's vital to consider the type of information the mobile user is likely to want and put this information at the top of the page.
Most people will be looking for a location or opening hours or even a map or menu - give this information to them first.
As demand rises more companies will  realize that if they want to attract the next generation of users then an website alone isn't enough. Now, a mobile presence will become a necessity for many sectors.

 Apps

UK retailer Debenhams has launched a transactional shopping app for Android and Nokia handsets, following the successful launch of its iPhone app last  October , which has so far achieved 360,000 downloads and sales of almost £1m.
The apps enable customers to narrow down the selection of items displayed by type, brand, colour, price and size. Bargain-hunting shoppers can also opt to shop for sale items only.
The star feature of the Android app is a barcode scanner, which can be used to scan product barcodes, for price checks and reviews. The barcode scanner has proved a popular feature on the iPhone app, with customers using it over 90,000 times.

Mobile gaming tech firm Mfuse has revealed that a record number of bets were placed via mobile gaming apps at last week’s Cheltenham Festival. In fact, more mobile bets were placed on the first day of the Festival than during the whole of last year’s four day meet, with an average of three people every second placing a bet via a mobile gaming app in the run up to the main race of the day. Overall, the use of mobile gaming apps at the meeting increased four-fold over last year, as companies including Ladbrokes,Paddy Power and William Hill sought to expand their use of the technology.

Over 300,000 mobile apps have been developed in three years. Apps have been downloaded 10.9 billion times. But demand for download mobile apps is expected to peak in 2013.
 In the States, the most used mobile apps are games; news; maps; social networking and music. Facebook, Google Maps and The Weather Channel rule.
The average download price of a mobile app is falling rapidly on all vendor app stores, except Android. And a quarter of mobile apps once downloaded are never used again.

The Mobile wallet

Comscore looked at the most likely places people used their mobile wallet in Japan.**

Retail/convenience stores topped the list with 7.6 million mobile subscribers using their mobile wallet at these locations in December, followed by vending machines (3.2 million), public transportation (2.7 million), grocery stores (2.6 million) and restaurants (1.5 million).
Although in its infancy in the European and U.S. markets, mobile wallet capabilities, using mobile phones in place of debit or credit cards for in-person purchases, are beginning to come onto the scene.For instance in early 2011, Starbucks announced that customers in thousands of locations can now pay for items with their phones via an application that can be scanned across a reader at check out.

Advertising on mobiles

According to consumer research in UK, France and Germany "" , 45 percent of consumers (especially younger people) noticed mobile advertising and of these, 29 percent responded to it. Of those that responded to the ads, in Germany 49 percent, UK 47 percent and in France 22 percent went on to make a purchase.

• The most effective form of ads was opt-in SMS in the UK (40 percent said they were more likely to respond to these) and in France (21 percent); while in Germany it was mobile Web ads (27 percent).

• Time sensitive special offers or discounts (especially m-coupons) were most likely to lead to purchase.

• People were most likely to purchase mobile content such as applications, music and games.


Sources : * Mobithinking   ^ research2guidance  UK Smartphone App Market Overview. ^^Return2sender/B&A  "".MMA and Lightspeed Research (October 2010), in UK, France and Germany **comscormobile 2010