DATA POINTS: Android and Apple Take Charge In US Web Browsing; Carrier Channel Dominates Sales; Mobile Marketers Need Many Methods; Augmented Reality Sees Bright Future; Top Mobile Apps for 2012 » mobilegroove

ANDROID AND APPLE NOW ACCOUNT FOR 75 PERCENT OF US MOBILE WEB TRAFFIC, a stat noticed by TechCrunch in the latest installment of AdMob’s Mobile Metrics Report. The iPhone OS (which also includes iPod Touches) leads the way, generating 55 percent of smartphone requests on AdMob’s network in the US, with Android pulling in 20 percent. RIM follows with just 12 percent, then webOS with 5 percent, and Windows Mobile with 4 percent.

Worldwide, iPhone leads the way in smartphone traffic, accounting for half of it, followed by Symbian with 25 percent. Android pulls in just 11 percent of global smartphone traffic. Admob also looked at results within the RIM and Android platforms. On Android, the HTC Dream (known also as the T-Mobile G1), the oldest Android handset accounts for a little more than a third of the platform’s total, but the newly released Motorola Droid already claims a quarter of the traffic. Source

The bottom line: In case you hadn’t figured it out, mobile platforms with better browsers and web UI get used to access the web more often than those with poor browsers and experiences.

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60 PERCENT OF MOBILE-ENABLED DEVICES WILL BE SOLD THROUGH OPERATORS BY 2013, says research firm In-Stat. Based on their success selling subsidized netbooks, the firm says operators are gearing up to sell more notebook computers, and will sell nearly a third of all notebooks in 2013. In addition, In-Stat says the market for Internet-connected devices will grow at a health CAGR of 22.3 percent over the next four years. Source

The bottom line: Two key trends to note here: the growing market for connected devices like e-book readers, GPS units and netbooks; and the growing data use of these devices. Will operators’ networks be able to cope?

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TEXT ADS AND WEB BANNERS ARE THE MOST NOTICEABLE FORMS OF MOBILE ADS, BUT CLICK TO CALL AND MOBILE VIDEO GET THE BEST RESPONSE, says new research from Parks & Associates. The report says that text ads garnered the highest recall rate of 11 different mobile formats, with click-to-call (CTC) faring the worst. Interestingly, the CTC ads had the second highest response rate (35 percent), behind video movie trailers (38 percent). Text ads elicited a response from just 26 percent of users, and web banners 30 percent. Source

The bottom line: Mobile marketers need a deep bag of tricks to lure in eyeballs and responses as consumers still feel their way through mobile ads.

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MOBILE AUGMENTED REALITY SERVICES WILL BE WORTH $732 MILLION BY 2014, says Juniper Research. AR apps, which overlay content onto maps or images of a user’s surroundings, are starting to emerge, but the company says they’ll be supported by a variety of business models within a few years, including paid downloads, ad support and subscriptions. Juniper says adoption will be driven by AR-based local search services, but the real revenues will first come from AR-enabled games. It adds that AR advertising will also be a viable market. Source

The bottom line: It’s still very early days for AR, even though there have been some pretty cool apps (like Layar) emerge already. This is definitely an optimistic projection, but it seems like some familiar issues, like device fragmentation for developers, will need to get worked out first.

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THE TOP TEN PROJECTED MOBILE APPS FOR 2012 LOOK PRETTY FAMILIAR, at least according to research firm Gartner’s list: money transfer, location-based services, mobile search, mobile browsing, mobile health monitoring, mobile payment, NFC, mobile advertising, mobile IM and mobile music. Most of that list encompasses services that are already popular (i.e. mobile search, mobile browing, mobile advertising); most of the rest of it appears to be services that have been hyped as the next big mobile thing for several years already (i.e. NFC, mobile payment, mobile music). Source

The bottom line: Gartner’s list isn’t too creative – which reflects the staying power of apps like web browsers. But it also reflects some of the endless hype of the mobile industry, where services get pumped up well before their time, then linger and linger on.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Mobile Marketing, Mobile Research, Mobile Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.