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The Growing prominence of the Mobile Phone Markets

There have been a raft of new surveys and research which indicate that the mobile phone, web and app markets are on the verge of becoming the dominant medium for consumption by consumers.

A survey by mobile retailer Purple Gossip has revealed that mobile phones are more important to UK consumers than laptops and iPods and are the most important gadgets to UK consumers.

Results from the survey revealed:

• 62% of respondents consider their mobile phone to be the most important gadget in their lives
• 60% of respondents cannot imagine what life would be like without their mobile phone
• 68% of respondents claimed that they felt at a loss when leaving their phone at home
• 16% of respondents said they can quite easily get by a mobile phone

Other findings from the survey:

• Handset usage has doubled in the last seven years
• 40% of respondents use their mobile phones for up to 3hrs a day
• Texting is the most popular and common use for mobile phones
• 38% of handset owners frequently use social networking applications

Looking at the mobile retail market, Juniper Research report that one-to-one marketing allied to the rapid proliferation of smartphones will be among the key drivers of a mobile retail market which they anticipate to exceed $12 billion by 2014.

The Juniper Research report found that the mobile retail sector would initially be dominated by coupons but noted that mobile advertising expenditure would exceed coupon redemption values by 2013 as digital adspend is increasingly transferred into the mobile space.

The report also showed that retailers and brands could benefit from new opportunities to engage with their customers through the growth of the mobile web, the availability of high speed mobile broadband networks, and the ever-growing usage of SMS.

Other findings from the Juniper report include:

• Mobile offers brands and retailers the ability to change campaigns quickly, and the ability to track the success and customer acquisition rates.
• Usage of the mobile in a live shopping situation can be particularly effective (i.e. product price comparisons)
• Mobile will be an effective channel for younger users who organise their lives around their mobile phones,
• Older demographic groups are likely to be less receptive to using their mobiles in a retail situation

Also there have been many surveys which are predicting big increases in the revenues of the mobile markets.

Another Juniper report predicts that web 2.0 mobile revenues are expected to reach $18.9 billion by 2014.

The primary market drivers for the increase are:

• Presence-enabled communities, i.e. mobile voice-over-IP (VoIP)
• Growth in the social Web (social networking, user-generated content (UGC) and mobile dating, chat & professional applications)
• Geolocation

The report found that despite the challenge of monetising Web 2.0 for online service providers, there are still numerous opportunities in the mobile market based around:

• Advertising
• Messaging
• Premium services
• Virtual economies
• Strategic micro-billing capability of mobile

Other key findings included:

Off-portal applications and OTT (over-the-top) services – such as mobile IM and VoIP, SMS and social network-based ‘in-mail’ – represent a significant threat to operator revenues Smartphones, app storefronts, and Web 2.0 applications are driving demand for cloud computing, and innovation in the service delivery environment – including Telecom Web Services, open APIs, and PaaS (platform as a service) and SaaS (software as a service).

Bit while there are threats to mobile revenues Juniper Research also reports that the value of presence based Mobile Web 2.0 services will increase to more than $6 billion by 2012.

The report stated that revenues from presence-based services were currently almost exclusively derived from operator-billed mobile IM accounts and that increasing smartphone penetration in developed markets, allied to rising global usage of both on-net and off-net mobile IM (instant messaging) will help to drive this trend.

OTOinsights Mobile UX webinar
OTOinsights have an array of experience in the mobile and technology sector,  conducting research and developing products and online solutions for leading mobile and technology organisations.

Using our experience and knowledge we have created a study called ‘mobile insights’. Key points include:

• details of research methodologies and techniques that can be used to understand the customer’s ‘informational landscape’
• explores how to make mobile applications not only ‘usable’ but also ‘engaging’ so that your customers want to use them time and time again.

If you would like to share in this piece of research than please join us on Thursday 15^th April at either:

4pm GMT (11am EST)

7pm GMT (2pm EST)

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