Gaming
Mobile Users Prefer Mobile Web not Apps
Even though mobile apps seem to get all the attention these days, consumer sentiment towards the debate between apps vs. the mobile Web show preference for the latter, in a big way.
eMarketer came out with data yesterday detailing a poll by Keynote Systems for Adobe that shows overwhelming consumer preference for mobile browsers to access virtually all mobile content. Games, music and social media were the only categories in which users would rather use a downloaded app than browse the mobile Web.
The retail category in particular shows an overwhelming preference for mobile Web access across nearly all mobile shopping tasks mentioned. Whether it was researching product and price info or sharing that information socially, mobile users would rather fire up a browser than a dedicated app. Interestingly, When the Adobe survey asked about a preference for using regular or mobile-optimized websites on their mobile device, they preferred regular sites in both the consumer products-shopping and media-entertainment categories.
According to the report, this preference suggests “a low awareness of optimized experiences for the mobile web,” but users could also be frustrated with the limited functionality many mobile-optimized sites provide. These results fall in line with most marketers in the retail space who say mobile apps don’t make sense for brand retailers. For example, during his keynote at the Mobile Shopping Summit in New York recently, a Kenneth Cole executive said that — especially with the rise of HTML5 — his company’s focus is on the mobile Web going forward.
“Looking at the mobile sites of mass merchants, look-up sites and brand retailers, they are all using different design templates and tactics to get their message across,” said Tom Davis, vice president of ecommerce at Kenneth Cole Productions. “This year we put our toe in the water, but we expect sales driven by mobile devices to be bigger than some of our bricks-and-mortar stores.
AdMob Debuts Interactive Video Ads For Android
Google today announced the launch of interactive video ads for Android devices, following up on a similar launch for iPhone in which the company says its already ran over 120 video and interactive interstitial campaigns worldwide for clients such as Universal Pictures, Best Buy and Seattle’s Best Coffee.
The updated SDK for Android devices includes interactive video and interactive interstitial ad units. Like its iPhone counterpart, AdMob will dynamically identify screen resolution, size, and network connection speed to serve users the best ad for each device. Google debuted similar functionality for iPhones close to a year ago in November 2009, and took the opportunity in its blog post today to take yet another stab at Apple and its iAds platform.
“More than 200,000 new Android devices are activated daily and our publisher network and traffic are growing rapidly on Android,” the company said. ”Based on demand from both advertisers looking to reach a cross-platform audience and Android publishers looking to maximize their revenue potential, we are launching interactive video and interactive interstitial ad units on the Android platform.”
Comscore: Mobile Content Usage
This must be unofficial Appalooza week. With new reports from Nielsen and the Pew Research Center on mobile apps already this week, comScore weighed in Wednesday with its own quarterly findings on mobile use, including apps.
The Web measurement firm found 31.4% of U.S. mobile users had downloaded an app for the three-month period ending July, up from 29.8% the prior quarter. Those figures correspond closely with the data Pew released yesterday, showing 29% of mobile users had downloaded an app in the last month. The comScore sample is a bit broader, including cell users 13 and older as opposed to only adults.
But the small uptick in app use tracked by comScore didn’t come at the expense of Web browsing. One third (33%) of mobile subscribers went on the mobile Web, up from 31.1%, as of April. Other mobile content categories saw slight gains as well. People accessing social networking sites or blogs via handsets increased from about 20% to nearly 22%, while the proportion of mobile music listeners went from 13.8% to 14.5%. The mobile gaming population remained flat at just over 22%.
Texting remained by far the most pervasive non-voice mobile activity, with two thirds (66%) of mobile users exchanging messages.
Looking at U.S. market share among smartphone platforms, comScore provided further evidence of Android’s rapid ascent, with 17% share, up from 12% in the previous quarter. The increase cut into the share of Apple’s iOS, which slipped to 25.1% from 23.8%. Microsoft’s Windows Mobile also lost ground, dropping to 11.8% from 14%. Palm remained the same with a 4.9% share and Research in Motion’s BlackBerry OS remained the top platform, with 39.3% share, down from 41.1%.
Gartner last week predicted Android will overtake BlackBerry as the world’s second largest smartphone operating system by year’s end and by 2014 will have a nearly 30% market share, rivaling that of Symbian. For now, rising smartphone sales continue to benefit all players.
In the U.S. 53.4 million people own smartphones, up 11% from April, according to comScore. That amounts to 22.8% of mobile users with high-end phones. Nielsen has projected smartphone penetration will surpass that of regular phones by the end of 2011.
When it comes to phone manufacturers, Samsung remained at the top, with a 23.1% market share, up a percentage point from April. Second-place LG was roughly flat at 21.2%, followed by Motorola, which fell to 19.8% from 21.6%, RIM, at 9%, and Nokia at 7.8%. The Finnish phone giant took a big step toward turning around its sagging fortunes in the U.S. with the hiring of former Microsoft executive Stephen Elop as CEO. Nokia Chairman Jorma Ollila said Tuesday he’ll step down in 2012.
