Topic
How $96,000 can buy you a top 10 ranking in the U.S. app store
Source: Venture Beat “How $96,000 can buy you a top 10 ranking in the U.S. app store” June 4, 2013 John Koetsier
Can you buy your way to the top of the app store? In a word, yes.
Apple may have killed AppGratis for being too good at driving installs, but the “boost effect” of big marketing campaigns, in-app promotions in popular apps, and other somewhat less savory means of driving big download numbers is still very much alive and kicking.
To get top 10 in the U.S., you need 80,000 downloads, mostly in the previous 24 hours. Once you’re there, of course, Apple’s own “app discovery” effect kicks in as users see you featured on the front page of the app store … and you tend to stay there.
Mobile app marketing company TradeMob — the largest app marketing platform in the world — says it works with 80 different app discovery partners. Most of them say that AppGratis just became too big for its britches (or Apple’s) and was culled simply for that reason. And most of them are still providing free or discounted apps, with 60 percent of them feeling “perfectly safe” that their app will not be deleted.
So based on 72 “boost” campaigns, TradeMob calculated the number of downloads required to hit the top 10 lists for some of the key iPhone markets … and the cost required to make that happen.
It turns out that those 80,000 downloads cost you $96,000 in the U.S. for a non-game app — an average price of $1.20 per download. That’s actually cheaper than it would be if you had to buy them all, due to “organic uplift” that helps you generate more downloads as people start using your app, and tweeting, sharing, and talking about your app.
It’s cheaper for games.
While non-game apps have a 65 percent uplift, game apps get a full 100 percent organic boost, according to TradeMob. That means that for every game app you pay, incentivize, or advertise to get a download, another one happens “for free.” So those 80,000 installs cost you only an average price of $0.70, for a total of $56,000.
Other countries are cheaper, of course.
The UK requires only 26,000 installs to hit the top charts; Germany, 15,000, and Spain, a mere 7,000. But, of course, the financial benefits of having a top 10 app in those countries is significantly less as well.
Here’s all the data, in visual form:
‘Next-gen consoles will be the Pied Pipers that lead some of the most promising companies today away from long-term success’
Summary:
Comprehensive article that looks at the future of mobile gaming and why hand held devices will eventually overtake the console. Covers topics such as:
- Gaming’s shift from the living room
- Free to play F2P and the soul of gaming
- F2P in 2013 = video games in 1982?
- Consoles as Pied Pipers
Mobile Gaming West Conference Highlights
Summary: This may not be the most glamorous conference we’ve ever attended, but I can’t remember the last time a conference was packed with so much useful information. Below are some of the highlights from and important takeaways for anybody working in the mobile gaming space.
- The deck is stacked against small mobile gaming developers who typically lack the resources and know-how for marketing and distributing their games. Many of these small developers are turning to publishers for help. But those publishers often take a 50% revenue cut. Moreover, there a lot of small developers vying for the attention of these publishers, who are in turn becoming more and more choosey about who they partner with. In general, the new benchmark for a successful game seems to be set at around $1m.
- The speed at which this sector is advancing is astounding. The main reason is because mobile apps are a closed-loop economy, meaning that transactions occur directly and instantly. Therefore, even small developers can get a good sense of ROI as soon as the game launches. And they have the means to conduct lots of testing within the app to see what works and what doesn’t. According to the latest data from Juniper Research, by 2017 there will be 64.1 billion games downloaded onto smartphones and tablet devices. if the projections manifest, it will represent a three-fold increase over 2012 downloads totaling 21 billion. One of the main reasons this nascent market has grown so fast is the break-neck speed at which they are able to learn. Probably 5x faster than any other sector we work in. This underscores the need for expertise in the space, since mobile gaming has a somewhat proprietary language and set of metrics. In other words, you can’t survive by simply throwing around buzz words, you must be authentic.
- There are many third-party platforms available to developers to compliment their SDK’s. Everything from marketing support to analytics are being offered. However, what seems to be lacking are strategic services. More precisely, a lack of understanding of gamer behavior OUTSIDE of the game itself.
- There were interesting trends mentioned, which we think will only continue to develop. For example, mini-consoles, whereby people use their mobile device as a controller/CPU and their TV as a monitor. We also expect to see more developers focus on niche markets, e.g., moms or on specific devices, e.g., tablets, which are two rapidly growing niche markets.
- Microsoft and Blackberry are still struggling to get developers to create apps for their operating systems. So much so, they’ve begun offering financial incentives to them. Overall, iOS and Android will continue to dominate the app market for at least the next 18 months.
Five Things You Didn’t Know About CPG Mobile Advertising
source: http://adage.com/article/digital/things-cpg-mobile-advertising/240903/?utm_source=digital_email
Packaged-goods marketers may not have been the fastest adopters of mobile advertising, but they’re catching up, according to a new study by Millennial Media and comScore, which found CPG advertisers more than tripled spending on mobile last year.
Among the things you might not have known about CPG advertisers in mobile:
1) CPG is adopting mobile faster than the other leading categories. Consumer goods ranked in No. 6 among industry verticals last year, according to Millennial Media, with spending up 235%.
2) Mobile is an awareness medium for CPG advertisers, just like, well, all the other media. Of consumer-goods campaigns, 46% had awareness as a goal vs. only 14% among mobile advertisers generally. As a result, CPG advertisers are using their awareness-building medium of choice — video — heavily. They’re twice as likely as advertisers overall to use mobile video, according to the study. (Separately, growing CPG interest in digital video has driven growth of TV-style ratings for online audiences and led them to increasingly repurpose TV ads as digital video. Thus, comScore recently divested its ARS Group TV copy-testing service, since few CPGs were paying separately to test digital video copy.)
3) CPGs are into location, with 40% using some kind of location targeting in mobile campaigns, making it the fourth-biggest vertical category using location, even though it’s only the sixth-biggest spender overall. Beverage and beauty advertisers led CPG subcategories using location targeting, accounting for 69% of industry usage.
4) Men are more likely than women to use their phones in stores for some tasks. Specifically, men are more likely to use phones to check product availability, compare prices, find deals or make online purchases. Women are more likely than men to use phones in stores to text or call friends about products, send pictures of products, or research product features.
5) Shoppers use their phones in stores more than many people believe. Millennnial Media and comScore found over a three-month period that 40% of women and 47% of men used their phones in stores to find coupons or deals, while 29% of men and 41% of women used their phones to research consumer-product details.
In-Store Mobile Behavior by Gender
During three-month period, percentage who used their phone for the following consumer-goods-shopping tasks while in a store:
Check product availability:
Men: 47%
Women: 39%
Compare prices:
Men: 51%
Women: 38%
Find coupon or deals:
Men: 47%
Women: 40%
Take picture of a product:
Men: 21%
Women: 29%
Text or call family or friends about a product:
Men: 37%
Women: 51%
Source: Millennial Media, comScore
Nordstrom finds a new way to revive SMS in its mobile app
Department store chain Nordstrom is enhancing the consumer experience on its iPhone application with updates that include product sharing via SMS and user reviews.
The new functions of the app will help consumers share their opinions on Nordstrom’s products with their friends and fellow shoppers. Luxury marketers with mobile apps should continue to update them with new functions to keep the experience relevant to savvy customers.
“We launched our smartphone shopping apps back in November of 2011, and since then have been doing a lot of listening and learning from our customers to make this a better shopping tool,” said Colin Johnson, spokesman at Nordstrom, Seattle.
Trying something new:
Nordstrom chose to tweak the shopping experience on its commerce-enabled iPhone app to encourage consumers to share their opinion on products. Before the update, consumers could share their favorite items with their friends via Facebook, Twitter and email. Now, consumers can send an auto-generated text message to anyone in their contact list about a particular product.
For example, if an app user wanted to share the Chloé Vanessa bag with a friend, the text message draft would say, “Check out my latest find from Nordstrom: http://shop.nordstrom.com/S/3453967 Chloé ‘Vanessa – Medium’ Crossbody Bag.” Nordstrom looked to make it easier for consumers to browse and make purchases on the app with a few other subtle updates, per Mr. Johnson. The retailer improved the sign-in process and enhanced the performance of the app. Consumers can also shop complete looks while browsing the sections of the app such as women, men, juniors and kids.
Text-obsessed:
Nordstrom launched its iPhone app in 2011 to combine commerce, customer service and cross-channel engagement. The app lets consumers buy products, curate looks, create a wish list, venture in-store for events and call customer service. Nordstrom’s smartphone app went live for iPhone users first, but was soon introduced for Android devices (see story). Since texting is important to Nordstrom’s customers, it was the next natural step in enhancing the app, per the retailer.
“Shopping, mobile and social are as aligned as the designer purse and shoes to go with the high-end dress – at least that is what my wife tells me,” said Jeff Hasen, Seattle-based mobile marketing consultant. “The shopping experience has been social for a long time,” he said. “Consumers call or text their friends for opinions, to show something off or to get those in the social network in on the sale.” In particular, the addition of sharing products via SMS will help Nordstrom reach out to potential customers who do not use Internet-enabled phones but have access to text messaging. “While we might believe that all Nordstrom shoppers carry smartphones, that certainly isn’t the case,” Mr. Hasen said. “Texting programs are inclusive, ensuring that all who want to participate can.”
How Responsive Design Boosts Mobile Conversions
Source: http://conversionxl.com/how-responsive-design-boosts-mobile-conversions/
Google is a strong advocate of responsive design. Mashable named2013 “The Year of Responsive Design”. But is responsive web design actually the answer to boosting mobile conversions?
2012 was a milestone year in the consumer devices market. For the first time since 2001,PC sales were lower that they were the previous year. Tablet sales are expected to top laptop PC sales for the first time in 2013. In addition, Nielsen reports that 55% percent of U.S. mobile subscribers own smartphones and 2 out of 3 Americans opt for a smartphone instead of a feature phone when purchasing a new mobile.
Mobile usage is increasing and translating into a growing percentage of mobile visitors. If businesses operating online want to benefit from this trend, they need to optimize the mobile experience for their website visitors.
Shopping on mobile devices can be a pain
The process of trying to buy something from a desktop design site with a smartphone can be summed up with one word – pain. Navigating from from one end of the site to the other, zooming in and out to find relevant content. Filling forms that assume that you are a screen tapping ninja and the checkout button which has the link “Terms and Conditions” below, making it an unexpected challenge to reach the checkout page. It´s no wonder that61% of mobile visitors move on to competitors sites after encountering a frustrating mobile browsing experience.
Meanwhile, mobile visitors are becoming more comfortable in taking action with their mobile phones, when its favored that is. Nielsen reports that 29% of smartphone owners have used their device for online shopping. The percentage will surely increase as businesses improve the mobile browsing experience on their sites. Companies that have already acknowledged the potential, and have invested in improving the mobile experience are reaping the benefits.
A good example of a company who is successfully converting mobile traffic isWebundies.com, a family-owned retailer of underwear, sleepwear and lounge-wear. Webundies.com announced 2012 mobile commerce sales of $168,000, accounting for 5.4% of total sales. For Webundies.com, mobile sales in 2012 increased a whopping 169,2% from 2011. The company is implementing both a responsive design and a tablet-optimized catalog to boost their mobile and tablet conversions, and clearly its paying dividends. Who wouldn’t want to enjoy the same success?
A business with a desktop design website that would like to enhance the mobile browsing experience and boost conversions has three options in general:
- Build a website using responsive design.
- Build a dedicated mobile web.
- Build an mobile app.
Responsive web design
Is a flexible, liquid layout that adapts to fit a various screen sizes, resolutions and devices. It allows websites to automatically change layouts according to the visitor´s screen resolution whether on a desktop, tablet, or smartphone creating a user-friendly interface when visitors browse websites.
If you’re viewing this blog post on a desktop browser, you can test responsive design in action. Try making your browser window smaller and you´ll notice the images and content column shrink to fit your screen.
A good example of responsive design in work on the example of The Boston Globe website. Notice how the same content adapts to fit the various devices
Responsive design has gained a lot of advocates due to its benefits compared to alternative solutions:
- One website to build and manage: a strong advantage for business who update their content often as it is no longer necessary to ensure content parity in various locations.This advantage also plays dividends in conversion optimization, for example in A/B testing, as there is only one body to conduct tests on. In addition, visitors encounter a cohesive brand experience regardless whether they´re using a laptop, smartphone or tablet.
- Search engine optimization: all links and bookmarks point to one URL. No wonder Google recommends responsive design.
- Social Media: with responsive design, the URLs visitors encounter are the same regardless whether they´re browsing with a laptop, tablet or smartphone. That makes sharing content through social media foolproof, as it´s guaranteed that the recipients will be able to browse the content in the most optimal view.
- Analytics: one complete view of all the traffic.
- Future-friendly: whatever the new trend setting device might be, responsive design has it covered by shrinking content to fit the resolution of the device.
The effect of responsive design on mobile conversions
Lets take a look at some examples of how implementing responsive design has boosted mobile conversions. All of the following companies have gone from a desktop site to responsive design:
O`Neill Clothing
The popular e-commerce store O´Neill Clothing racked up some impressive results after implementing responsive design. O`Neill monitored conversions, transactions and revenue for three weeks prior to going responsive. Then, after deploying the responsive conditions to the already live site, they monitored the same metrics for another three weeks. The results are staggering:
For iPhone/iPod:
- Conversions increased by 65.71%
- Transactions increased by 112.50%
- Revenue increased by 101.25%
For Android devices:
- Conversions increased by 407.32%
- Transactions went up by 333.33%
- Revenue increased by a whopping 591.42%
Think Thank Photo
Think Thank Photo (TTP) is a company that produces equipment and accessories for photographers. After witnessing their mobile visitors triple in a year to 13% of their overall website traffic, TTP made to decision to rebuild the site using responsive design.
As a result of the new responsive layout and other optimization efforts, TTP achieved a 188% increase in revenue from Black Friday through Cyber Monday compared to 2012. Transactions from users on smartphones and tables increased more than 96% and pageviews among mobile users increased by 224%.
Skinny Ties
A family-run company that has been designing and producing neckties since 1971, Skinny Ties decided to reinvent the brand`s identity and build a platform that would be future-friendly. Bearing in mind the increasing penetration of smartphones and tablets, the company opted for responsive design. The site launched in October 2012 and within a couple of weeks Skinny Ties experienced massive improvements in sales metrics compared to the previous three months:
- Revenue from iPhone grew a staggering 377.6%
- iPhone conversion rate increased 71,9%
- Revenue from all devices went up 42.4%
- Overall Conversion rate increased by 13.6%
- Bounce rate dropped 23.2%
Maxatec
Maxatec is company that offers POS & EPOS systems, mobile and barcode products. Similarly to the previous examples, Maxatec saw an increase in mobile visitors and decided to the improve the user experience of tablet and smartphone visitors and boost conversions in that segment.
The results: mobile visitor goal conversion rate went up by 12% and the average time to complete a task decreased by 50%.
Conclusion
As predicted, the described case studies unambiguously show that responsive design is far superior to desktop design in converting mobile visitors. Businesses who attract mobile visitors to a desktop design are missing out on a large chunk of potential conversions and revenue and as smartphone penetration is increasing, having a desktop design could turn out to be expensive (in terms of lost conversions and revenue).
Dedicated mobile website
A business may also opt for building a dedicated mobile site to enhance the browsing experience of mobile visitors. A dedicated site lies separately (separate URL) from the desktop site and it´s sole purpose is to host mobile visitors.
An example of dedicated mobile website: Amazon
The advantages of a dedicated mobile site:
- Dedicated mobile sites optimize for both mobile behavior and resolution, while responsive optimizes for only resolution.
- Faster load times. When Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center wanted to improve their sites mobile experience, BlueTrain Mobile made an example of how one page of their website would have looked if they had adopted responsive design, and how the page would have looked in a dedicated mobile site. In the same mobile network, it took 15 seconds for the page in responsive design to load while the dedicated mobile page loaded in just 2 seconds.
- Easier to optimize for mobile conversions. Dedicated mobile sites focus solely on mobile visitors, while with responsive you have to keep in mind laptops, tablets and smartphones.
The disadvantages of dedicated mobile sites are basically the same as the advantages for responsive design:
- Two bodies of content to manage
- Separate URLs: if you´re using content marketing to attract visitors, this is a huge disadvantage as link sharing in social media is problematic.
Mobile app
Building a mobile app to enhance the browsing experience of mobile visitors is a good idea if you have a unique social or interactive platform our when your site is your product. If you´re not Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube – build a dedicated mobile site or use responsive design.
Just think about it. When your site is not your product, can you think of any realistic reason why anyone should download your app from an appstore, install it, and use it just to visit your site? No? Thought so.
The additional disadvantages of apps are that they have a restricted amount of content and functionality, plus they´re operation system specific. Most probably you´ll need need to build for both Android and iOS to optimize for your mobile visitors.
Responsive vs Dedicated Mobile: which one should you choose?
Responsive has a lot of advocates for a reason. When comparing the two alternatives, responsive design is more future-friendly, has one body of content to manage (assures content parity), provides a constant brand experience and is social media friendly.
Dedicated mobile sites have basically one advantage – faster load times. But with the improvement of mobile networks and faster downloading speeds, the loading time differences between responsive design and dedicated mobile will lessen.
From a conversion optimization standpoint, the fact is that with both alternatives you´d need to follow the same route: constant improvements, A/B testing and multivariate analysis. Therefore it would be wise to go with the alternative that provides the most advantages – responsive web design.
5 things to keep in mind when optimizing responsive design for mobile conversions
1. Focus on the important
When optimizing for mobile visitors, it´s important to remember that the most annoying thing for mobile visitors is going through bunches of plain text. If mobile visitors can´t find what they´re looking for quickly, they´re gone.
Critically review your content and keep everything that helps mobile visitors to find what they´re looking for quickly. Get rid of anything that may lead to visitors clicking away
Make sure that the first thing your mobile visitors see is your value proposition (VP).A value proposition is a clear statement that explains how your product solves customers problems; delivers specific benefits and why the customer should buy from you and not from the competition. For more information about building a viable value proposition, read this blog post.
Fork, an open source CMS, is a good example of a responsive web that has a highly visible value proposition for mobile visitors. When browsing the site, a mobile visitor will immediately know what Fork is and what are its benefits. The questionable part of the VP is “will rock your world”, which really communicates nothing. Replacing it with a statement that says who Fork is aimed at (eg “small businesses”) would be much more informative.
Although a dedicated mobile site, Kumon is a very good example of a business that is correctly communicating its value proposition. A glance at the site and you have a clear understanding of what the service is and who is it designed for.
In addition to making your value proposition visible, statements developed for boosting conversions, for example free shipping and money-back guarantee, should also stand out from rest of the content.
2. Make your CTA-s stand out and according with mobile behavior
Make your call-to-action buttons so large that they take up the entire width of the mobile screen. This ensures that mobile visitors don´t need to zoom to focus in on the CTA button.
Also, put your CTAs in accordance with mobile behavior. A 15 page white paper may be a conversion hit on a desktop site, but it´s highly unlikely that a mobile visitor will be interested in going through the trouble of downloading the paper and then reading it on a tiny mobile screen. “Sign up for Our Newsletter” or “Like Us on Facebook” are better call-to-actions for a mobile visitor who is on-the-go.
A clever idea is to implement mobile specific call-to-actions under contact information, such as “Call Now” or “Get Directions”. The mentioned CTAs will start a phone call or open a map application, overall resulting in a more targeted mobile browsing experience.
Audi has a highly visible CTA on their mobile landing page. Though not responsive design, it´s a great example of a well placed CTA, leaving mobile visitors with no confusion on what to do next.
3. Make use of photographs and videos
Reading plain text on a mobile phone is tiresome and difficult, especially when you consider that most of mobile browsing happens on the fly with texting and apps interfering. Photographs and videos on the other hand are great for capturing the attention of mobile visitors and communicating your marketing messages.
A great example of a responsive design site that uses photographs to capture mobile visitors attention is Food Sense, a food recipe blog. When on the look for recipes for delicious meals, it´s highly likely that you´ll stop on a site which uses remarkable pictures to develop a craving for food.
Another company that is effectively using images to capture mobile visitors attention and communicate its brand values is Starbucks:
With creative, keep in mind that more photographs and videos translate into a longer page load time. A study found that 67% of people expect a mobile site to load in under just 4 seconds. Also, never use flash as it´s not supported on some mobile devices, for exampleiOS.
4. Cut down your forms
Long forms are conversions killers on desktop sites. They´re even worse for mobile visitors. Filling out forms with a smartphone is time consuming and uncomfortable. To boost mobile conversions, keep your forms short.
Review forms with the view of “Is this field absolutely necessary?” If the answer is no, delete it. You can ask for additional information after the actual conversion with a follow up e-mail or call.
5-6 fields are the maximum recommended amount of fields in a form when optimizing for mobile visitors. In addition use vertical-align labels (top) instead of left-aligned labels.
A good example of a business who has made filling out forms as easy as possible is Hertz, a car rental company. You can get a quote on a rental car by filling out four information fields. No name, address or contact information needed – they´re irrelevant when requesting a quote and can be gathered later, when the customer has made the actual purchase decision. Well done Hertz!
5. Use expandable content or tabs to avoid mobile scrolling
When running an e-commerce business, try implementing expendable content or tabs on your product pages. The point of tabs is to structure information based on categories so that mobile users can find what they´re looking for quicker.
For example, instead of scrolling to waves of content to find product reviews, a mobile visitors just clicks on the “Review” tab on the product page and voila – he has the needed social proof to make the transaction.
Tria offers a good learning example with their desktop product site and the same page as a mobile landing page. Notice how all the content on the bottom half of the desktop site is placed as expandable content on the mobile landing page.
In addition Tria gets credit for the CTA which is highly visible and well placed. Also notice how “Free Shipping” has been made more visible compared to the desktop site. “Reviews” have been altered in the same manner to provide social proof to mobile visitors.
Conclusions
- An increasing amount of website visits are performed on smartphones and tablets meaning that businesses who want to benefit from this trend, must enhance the browsing experience for these devices.
- Responsive web design allows websites to automatically change layouts according to the visitor´s screen resolution whether on a desktop, tablet or smartphone, thus creating a user-friendly interface when visitors browse websites.
- Companies that have invested in improving the browsing experience of mobile visitors and have gone from a desktop design to responsive design have seen increases in mobile conversions.
- When optimizing responsive design for mobile conversions make sure your VP and other conversion boosting elements are highly visible. Use images and videos instead of plain text and make your forms as short as possible.
Correlation Found Between Twitter Buzz and TV Ratings
An increase in Twitter volume about live TV correlates with an increase in TV ratings across varying age groups,finds Nielsen in a study conducted with SocialGuide. Analyzing tweets about live TV, the study determined that Twitter was one of 3 statistically significant variables to align with TV ratings. The other two are prior-year rating and advertising spend. Nielsen cautions that the “study doesn’t prove causality.”
For the 35-49 age group, a 14% increase in Twitter volume corresponded with the 1% rise in ratings for premiere episodes, while for midseason episodes, the associated Twitter volume increase was 8.4%. That suggests that the relationship between Twitter and TV is stronger among the younger group, a fairly intuitive result. Notably, by midseason, Twitter accounted for more variance in ratings for the 18-34 group than advertising spend.
The finding, should it hold up in further research Nielsen plans to conduct, is an important one for the TV industry, which has been grappling with the effects of increased multi-screening behavior. It follows from survey-based research last year by TV Guide survey, which found that social media buzz affects the TV viewing patterns of some adults. More recent data from Nielsen indicates that up to half of 25-34-year-olds visit social networking sites on their smartphones during both commercials and programswhile watching TV.
Previous research has also found Twitter to dominate the social TV landscape, and Twitter itself recently said that about two-thirds of its primarily mobile users visit the site in front of the TV.
Highlights from Nielsen’s Mobile Consumer Report
(Source: by Nick Mulligan in News on 19 March 2013)
Nielsen’s Mobile Consumer Report
Nielsen have just released their Mobile Consumer Report. It’s got some interesting findings, so we thought we’d give you a summary.
The current landscape
Mobile phone ownership in both developed and high-growth countries has reached a critical mass, with no growth from the first half of 2012. The high rates of ownership are shown in the below graph:
Nevertheless, the kinds of phone we own are changing. Smartphone ownership is highest in South Korea, China, Australia and the UK, whilst those in Turkey and Brazil were most likely to own a multimedia phone. Feature phones are most popular in India, owned by 80% of all those with a device.
Some countries have a higher prevalence of multiple-device ownership, too, as highlighted by the coloured segments in these pie charts:
The report also contains interesting information on where and why we purchase our devices. 49% of Russian mobile users purchased their device at a major electronics or media store, whilst 39% of those in the UK purchased online. Factors vary by location: value for money is most important in the US, UK, Italy and China, as opposed to Russians who care about ‘stylish design’ or Chinese consumers, who want a large choice of apps.
Behaviours: shopping, social & video
Worldwide, text messaging is by far the most popular use of a mobile device. E-mail, instant messaging, social networking and the general use of apps are big too; the latter two showing high penetration in almost all markets other than India. Within the use of applications, social networking is strongest in the US, where 85% of smartphone owners are regular users, followed by 67% in Brazil and 60% in China. 58% of UK smartphone owners regularly make use of social apps.
Smartphones have the biggest impact on shopping for US users, who are most likely to use their devices for in-store price comparison, online coupons and purchasing products.
Another big use of smartphones is in watching mobile video, the frequency of which is shown below. This is most prevalent in emerging markets, especially China, and less so in the developed world, with the exception of the US.
In most countries, video is most often accessed via mobile web, but South Korean and UK users prefer to use a mobile app. In the US, both mobile web and applications are hugely popular: 72% of smartphone owners watch mobile video through these. Downloading clips is the least popular method in most countries, other than in India, where it outranks applications and Russia, where the two are level.
Mobile advertising
As smartphone usage grows, it is unsurprising that mobile advertising increases with it. In every country other than India, more than 50% of smartphone users who receive mobile ads did so at least once a day.
The effectiveness of these ads varies by country, too. In developed countries, people are less likely to click on adverts, whilst fast-developing countries see greater success. Interestingly, whilst it was shown above that Indian smartphone owners are least likely to receive ads, they are more likely to submit personal details once an ad is seen.
To conclude…
So, there’s a whole host of information about the differing nature of mobile ownership around the world. We’re seeing smartphones take over the developed world, with developing economies following not too far behind. All across the world, we’re using our phones for more and more exciting activities: apps, social networking, m-commerce. When it comes to mobile advertising, we’ve seen an increase in volume, which may well be responsible for a dip in effectiveness.
There’s plenty more in the report, too. For even more information, as well as details of the research methodology in different countries, make sure to have a look at the whole thing.
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