July 23rd, 2009 | by Stan Schroeder
– AdMob’s June 2009 Mobile Metrics report, which you can download here [PDF link] breaks down the iPhone share by country. The United States leads with 50.2%, followed by Germany (7.3%), France (6.8%), United Kingdom (6.4%), and Canada (3.1%). –
This are the first data-lytics of iPhone distribution by country. The iPhone and the App Store have created a ubiquitous international marketing and distribution network that will connect user, developer and merchant seamlessly. More>>
APP Store, Mobile Phones, Social Networking
August 29th, 2009
Personal Location Services is the killer app and proof of that statement can be found in the recent release by Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service — The very popular Twitter service is moving from the virtual to the real world connecting everyone using GPS. Found everywhere as a download this writter thinks that Twitter will have some catching-up to do if it is to compete with the Apple iPhone App Store.
Perez writes — Developers very interested at the possibilities this new geolocation functionality will open up for their applications. By the company’s own admission, geotagging in the popular microblogging and social-networking service has been a rudimentary and inexact affair, dependent on a text field that users can leave blank or fill in with anything they like. However, Twitter announced last week that it will soon let users stamp their postings with precise location data, and give external developers access to that data via a new geolocation API (application programming interface.) More >>
APP Store, Global Positioning Systems, Social Networking
August 27th, 2009
by Kristina Knight
Advertising, overall, will not fare as well as it is expected to fall by 7%.
SMS text messages continue to lead in mobile marketing with 66% of marketers saying they use SMS to reach consumers. Mobile Websites are quickly catching up (53% are using mobile sites) and mobile email campaigns (33%). One benefit of the mobile campaign is that marketers are learning how to attach a ‘use now’ coupon to an email message so that consumers are more likely to go to a brick-and-mortar store or visit a website to use the coupon.
In 2009, mobile marketing is expected to reach $1.7 billion; by 2010, it is expected to reach $2.16 billion. Currently mobile accounts for less than 2% of most marketer budgets.
With more consumers logging on to the mobile web, marketers are following and so are mobile ad platforms. The MMA is not the only group touting the fast growth of mobile revenue. Forrester Research reports that the interactive ad spend will top $50 billion by 2014; mobile marketing efforts are going to be a big part of that increase. In fact, social and mobile efforts are expected to be the two biggest reasons for interactive spending to explode over the next five years.
MMA: Mobile to jump 25% in 2009
The economy may still be in trouble, but mobile marketers are betting on the relatively new medium to help them beat the selling doldrums. According to a new forecast from the Mobile Marketing Association, mobile marketing will increase by 26% this year.
3G Smart Phones, Global Positioning Systems, Location Based Services, Mobile Phones, Social Networking
June 21st, 2009
GIGAMON:
With Apple having shown the way, suddenly everyone is showing a renewed interest in location-based services, said Ted Morgan, Skyhook founder and CEO.
“Thanks to the popularity of iPhone, we are seeing more and more apps using geo-data,” Morgan pointed out. For instance, game developers are using geolocation data to build location-based leader boards. “The iPhone has unleashed location-based creativity,” he said. Last year, I pointed out that “in order for LBS to be on mobile phones, we need applications, which is where I believe the iPhone plays a vital role. Its large screen and built-in GPS (and now its 3G speeds) enable and encourage truly interesting LBS applications.”
- Last year, there were only a few dozen apps that incorporated location-based data. This year that number has grown to 2,000 apps. Next year there will be five times as many apps that utilize location-based data.
- There are nearly 200 million geolocation queries on Skyhook’s system. In comparison, Google is searched more than a billion times a day.
Those numbers should be enough for LBS skeptics to take a fresh look at location-based services. ABI Research predicts that location-based services will be a $13 billion business by 2013 vs. $515 million in 2008. Morgan says that the next big location push is going to come from the netbooks and adds, “Most laptop and netbook makers are building location-functionality into their devices.” Next up — non-computing devices such as WiFi-enabled cameras.
This opportunity hasn’t gone unnoticed, attracting more attention and competition to Skyhook. And there is no one bigger than Google.
3G Smart Phones, APP Store, Global Positioning Systems, Location Based Services, Mobile Phones, Social Networking
June 20th, 2009
TechCrunch by Erick Schonfeld on June 1, 2009
When you look at sales of the iPhone or Blackberry as a percentage of total cell phone sales, they are still a tiny smidgen of the one billion phones estimated to be sold this year. But when you look at what really matters—their share of revenues or operating profits—the picture looks a lot different. Deutsche Bank analyst Brian Modoff calculated the share of operating profits going to each major mobile handset manufacturer and came up with the eye-opening chart above. It shows Apple (pink) and RIM (turquoise) increasingly taking a disproportionate share of industry profits, mostly at the expense of Nokia’s diminishing handset operating profits (blue).
In a note, Modoff writes: “Increasingly, the smartphone vendors are claiming more of the industry’s profit dollars even as the pool of profitability stabilizes or shrinks.” Thanks to the success of the highly-profitable iPhone, Apple’s share of industry operating profits went from 3 percent in 2007 to 20 percent in 2008 and will grow again to an estimated 31 percent in 2009. RIM, maker of the Blackberry, is doing even better, increasing its estimated share of industry profits from 8 percent (2007) to 19 percent (2008) to 35 percent (2009). So adding those two together, Apple and RIM are expected to account for an incredible 66 percent of industry profits this year.
As a follow on from CIO Magazine…
It is predicted that the number of mobile social networkers will reach 800 million worldwide by 2012. Companies are reaping the benefits from mobile CRM, field service and sales force automation processes with the latest Research In Motion (RIM) offerings. Research in Motion has gained nearly 3% after a pair of analysts boosted price estimates for the Blackberry maker. Thomas Weisel raised its forecast to $92 per share from $85 and RBC Capital Markets upped its outlook price to $100 per share from $90.
Is it any wonder that Obama did not want to give up his Blackberry…
3G Smart Phones, Global Positioning Systems, Location Based Services, Mobile Phones, Social Networking
June 16th, 2009
