STATS PACK: Youth Market Into Mobile Search; GPS Boosts LBS Application Spend; UK Operators Agree On Mobile Advertising; South Korea (Still) Loves Social Networking » mobilegroove

MOBILE SEARCH; New research out from OTX Research will encourage the mobile search industry as it gives an indication that the fickle youth market is starting to use the mobile Internet. The report (no indication of how far and wide this one spread it’s net) states that about 30 percent of teens are viewing mobile websites and 22 percent are downloading video-clips onto their phones. Although these are not huge percentages, they certainly point in the right direction and outweigh the vital statistics for GPS – only 16 percent use it and 14 percent want it.

Texting is still the king with more than half stating they wanted to text above all else, which is not exactly ground-breaking news. But the search industry must draw parallels from SMS if it is to become a mainstream service for the teen-market. Mobile search must be quick, easy to use and above all else, a highly personalised service. This all points towards recommendation search which will remove irrelevant content from the mobile screen and place control firmly in the hands of the user.

LOCATION BASED SERVICES; Telephia have made the obvious link between GPS availability and LBS uptake in their second quarter report on mobile applications published this week which states that 51 percent of all spending on mobile applications is spent on LBS. This is just one of a raft of stats on the location market and is mainly down to the high price users are willing to pay for mobile navigation services. The average monthly spend on LBS in the U.S. market is $9.23, more than $4 higher than then nearest mobile application challenger, mobile music which weighed in at $4.99. This premium for location can also be attributed to a premium for context.

However, application download rates are only tipping 5 percent as opposed to the 7 – 13 percent achieved by other downloadable content like mobile games. “Many consumers may not realize the utility of a navigation application on their mobile phone until they use it,” said David Gill, Director of Mobile Media, Telephia. “However, Nokia’s bid to buy NAVTEQ for $8.1 billion is a very positive sign for the market and validates the strength and potential of LBS.”

The challenge for the LBS industry is one that in part can be solved by GPS enabled handsets – there are now 130 million of these in the U.S. market alone. As this number increases, application providers must weave location, context, and content personalisation into the very fabric of their most popular mobile services.

MOBILE ADVERTISING; 5 out of 5 for the Mobile Marketing Association as 100 percent of UK mobile operators come out to support their new industry guidelines on mobile advertising in an open letter to NMA . Neil Andrews, head of mobile advertising at 3, Simon Dean, content and development at O2, Steve Ricketts, head of third-party services at Orange, James Rowe, head of content at T-Mobile and Shan Henderson, head of mobile advertising and industry development at Vodafone said of the guidelines “A common set of guidelines helps the development of any market and, as they’re not standards as such, they leave room for creativity. The market now needs to focus on what makes mobile different: location, socio-demographic profiling and accurate behavioural analysis.”

This wholehearted support bodes well for the mobile advertising industry in the UK as it gives the market a chance to deliver advertising that is compatible with the fragmented handset user base. Their awareness and comments on location, segmentation and user behaviour also point towards impending success in the delivery of contextual advertising.

SOCIAL NETWORKING; As if we needed reminding that the South Korean mobile market is one of the most developed in the world, along comes a book packed with stats that confirms this for us. Tomi Ahonen’s Digital Korea informs us that 43 percent of South Korea’s population maintain an online profile or blog site in Cyworld, 30 percent of South Koreans upload pictures from camera phones to social-networking sites and 20 percent of South Korean cell-phone owners use Internet search on their cell phones. Impressive figures considering many of the stats come from studies and research carried out in 2005 – many developed markets would love to report these stats for 2007.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 17th, 2007 at 4:32 pm and is filed under Location-Based Services, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Search, Mobile Social Media. 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.