The Official blog of Dark Matter, Inc.

Key Highlights:

1. Moms rock but are very difficult to reach.
2. People with college degrees have higher marriage rates
3. Higher income families spend less time with television and more time online. However, they spend the least amount of time on social network sites. Multicultural families are the future. Households with children under age 18 will be predominantly multi-cultural by 2020 (Hispanic, African-American and Asian-American); 40 percent already are multi-cultural today due in large part to immigration.
4. Time-shifted viewing has become the norm. Three-screen lifestyles (TV, Internet and mobile) predominate.
5. African-American media habits are TV- and mobile-centric.
6. Asian-Americans exhibit a huge appetite or online media, logging 80 hours in PC time and viewing 3,600 web pages, 1,000 pages more than any other ethnic group.
7. Mobile serves as a key source of connectivity within the Hispanic community. They are more likely than the average household to have cell phones with Internet (55%) and video (40%) capabilities and text more than any other race or ethnicity, sending 943 texts per month.

Below is a summary of what we see as the top ten overarching mobile trends of 2010:

1. Phones Keep Getting ‘Smarter’: Smartphone adoption continues to increase across the U.S. and Europe, with most markets surpassing 25-30% market penetration for smartphones. The proliferation of new devices hitting the market in 2010 – including the iPhone 4, Blackberry Storm 2, and Motorola Droid X – has given consumers strong smartphone options across wireless carriers that is helping this segment of the market gain traction.
2. iPhone Dominates Device Sales: The top two devices sold in 2010 in both the U.S. and EU5 were the iPhone 3GS and iPhone4, respectively. The #3 device in the U.S. was the Blackberry Curve, while the #3 device in the EU5 was the Nokia 5800 – XpressMusic.
3. Android Storms Smartphone Market: 2010 saw Google’s Android platform grab hold in the mobile marketplace in a big way. In the U.S. alone, Android’s share of the smartphone market jumped from 5% to 29% in just one year, and it leapfrogged Apple to become the #2 smartphone platform after RIM. The number of different smartphones running Android certainly helped accelerate this trend, as did the desire for many consumers on Verizon to opt for a smartphone with a strong app economy.
4. The App Ecosystem Blossoms: iPhone paved the way for the app ecosystem to emerge as developers create new and interesting apps for consumers every day. While most early apps were developed primarily for the iPhone, we are now seeing vibrant app ecosystems for Android, Blackberry and others.
5. Email Shifts to the Mobile Phone: 2010 saw usage of PC-based email decline, particularly among teenagers, and it appears that much of that email activity is moving to people’s mobile devices. While Blackberry was once in a league of its own in terms of email functionality, many other devices have since caught up, and consumers are responding. Email now exists across media and mobile devices will continue to be a growing part of that trend.
6. Location is Everything: Location-based check-in services like Foursquare, Gowalla and Facebook Places all entered the digital lexicon in 2010 and have begun to gain consumer adoption. Other GPS-enabled apps like Google Maps and Garmin have also proved to be among the most popular and widely downloaded.
7. Social Owns Mobile: Social media is one of the most prevalent and fastest-growing activities on the mobile phone. In the U.S. the number of mobile social media users grew 56% to lead all content categories, and in the UK Facebook accounts for 40% of all time spent on mobile sites.
8. Mobile Commerce Readies for Lift-off: Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has yet to gain traction in a significant way, but as smartphone adoption accelerates, technology has begun to facilitate mobile transactions. The next phase in m-commerce will be the emergence of the “mobile wallet” with direct payments coming from the mobile device, with Starbucks leading the way among merchants in installing the technology for such payments.
9. iPad Redefines the Mobile Landscape: Apple’s blockbuster launch of the iPad in early 2010 set the stage for a completely new category of device to emerge, as several other tablets and e-readers hit the market by the end of the year. As a reasonably sophisticated computing device that is also mobile, the iPad has given new definition to the types of behaviors in which consumers will engage in the mobile environment. The iPad is also causing time-shifting in how and when consumers engage with content, with the iPad showing a high percentage of activity late at night as people wind down for the evening.
10. Mobile Advertising Market Takes Shape: As mobile media consumption increases, it was only a matter of time before the mobile advertising boom began to take shape. Apple got into the act with the introduction of the iAd, which has already attracted many of the top brand advertisers like AT&T, Citi and Disney. Expect to see more and better quality ad units alongside mobile media content in 2011.

You can see from this selection of highlights that 2010 was another outstanding year, and this year promises to shine even brighter. If you haven’t already downloaded the 2010 Mobile Year in Review, you can do so here. We hope you enjoy and that it gives you a few things to think about on your way to success in 2011…

The U.S. wireless data market is on track to surpass $54 billion in 2010, with third-quarter data revenue up 25% from a year ago and 7% from the prior quarter, according to a new report from mobile research and consulting firm Chetan Sharma.

The study highlighted the rapidly growing connected device category, including tablets, e-readers, GPS gadgets and the like, as a driving force for mobile data during the quarter. “While the traditional net-adds have been slowing, the ‘connected device’ segment is picking up so much that AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint added more connected devices than postpaid subs in Q3 2010,” noted Chetan Sharma.

The connected device category overall was up 42% from a year ago, and 12% from the second quarter, and the firm predicts that within five years it will generate more revenue for U.S. operators than the entire prepaid segment. “While today, connected devices represent only 3% of the quarterly data revenues, this segment didn’t really exist a few months ago, and will keep on gaining strength every year for the foreseeable future,” stated the report.

Chetan Sharma describes the iPad as a new category in itself, forcing competitors to respond by rushing to release to their own tablets. One alternate approach by Apple’s rivals is introducing devices with smaller screens than the iPad, such as the 7-inch Galaxy Tab from Samsung and forthcoming Playbook from Research in Motion. Whatever tablet variations emerge, the research firm insists the category is here to stay, with demand for netbooks fading over time as a result.

For carriers, Sprint’s third-quarter results showed it’s not always a zero-sum game among connected devices. Sprint CEO Dan Hesse recently pointed out that strong iPad sales had helped lift sales of its Overdrive wireless-hotspot device, which customers use to hook up their iPads to the Internet while out and about.

While Verizon and AT&T continue to dominate the mobile data business — accounting for 85% of revenue between them — the report found T-Mobile USA’s expansion of 3G service is starting to pay off. The smallest of the four major U.S. wireless operators, which added subscribers in the third quarter after two quarters of losses, is starting to match its larger competitors in mobile data growth. Verizon, AT&T and Sprint now all derive 30% of wireless revenues from mobile data, while T-Mobile gets 27% from the segment.

Looking ahead, Chetan Sharma is bullish on the outlook for the rollout of Windows Phone 7 devices, which debut Nov. 8 in the U.S. “Microsoft launched its much anticipated Windows Phone 7 in a bid to recapture the mind- and unit-share. By taking a different UI (user interface) route, it actually has a shot to be a viable third option to iPhone and Android and pushing RIM from the top 3,” according to the study.

For the three months ending in September, Windows Mobile was fourth among smartphone platforms in the U.S., with a 10% share. RIM had 37.3%, Apple’s iOS, 24.3%, and Android, 21.4%. Growing uptake of high-end devices by Americans is creating opportunity for all smartphone OS and device makers. Nearly half (47%) of devices sold in the U.S. in the third quarter were smartphones, compared to 24% globally.

“The fast pace of device introduction has catapulted the agile players like Samsung and HTC to the forefront while others like LG and Sony Ericsson have lost ground. By focusing singularly on Android and by broadening the device portfolio, Motorola has written a great comeback script,” noted Chetan.