GetJar Passes 500m Downloads

Independent app store GetJar has revaled that more than a half billion applications have been downloaded from its store. The milestone is significant, says GetJar, because it proves that consumer demand for apps is becoming a truly global phenomenon. The company hosts almost 50,000 mobile applications, which are available in more than 200 countries.
The top apps downloaded from the site include the Opera Mini web browser, with almost 17 million downloads; eBuddy instant messaging (over 16 million); Nimbuzz mobile messaging (almost 14 million); mig33 mobile community (over 10 million); and Google Maps for mobile (over 5 million).
“GetJar’s success to date is the product of the innovation, hard work, and loyalty of our developer community – from small, two man teams in India to large-scale developers in the US or Europe,” says GetJar CEO and Founder, Ilja Laurs. “Making sure these developers have an open, free and quick way to get their content distributed globally is essential to provide the widest offering of quality apps to consumers.”

Apple Celebrates 1.5bn Downloads

Apple is celebrating more than 1.5 billion applications in the first year from its App Store. The App Store is also growing fast, with more than 65,000 apps and more than 100,000 developers now in the iPhone Developer Program.
“The App Store is like nothing the industry has ever seen before in both scale and quality,” says Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. “With 1.5 billion apps downloaded, it is going to be very hard for others to catch up.”
The App Store has more than 65,000 apps to consumers in 77 countries. It works with both iPod touch and the iPhone. Apple has so far shipped over 40 million of both device types.

Banner Ad Numbers Rise, and Fall

BuzzCity, which provides wireless communities and consumer services, has announced the results of its quarterly Global Mobile Advertising Index for Q2, 2009, which show an annual rise, but a quarelty fall, in the number of mobile banner ads served.
The figures show that the global recession is having some effect on mobile advertisers, but that mobile advertising continues its strong overall growth. The Index represents inventory sold across the BuzzCity Mobile Advertising Network in more than 200 countries globally and documents the usage of the mobile Internet in these markets.
In the second quarter of 2009, the BuzzCity Mobile Advertising Network delivered 7.5 billion paid advertising banners, a year-on-year increase of almost 80% across the network. Although strong, however, the numbers represent a decline of 10% compared to the previous quarter, due to 600 million fewer impressions on the network in Indonesia, BuzzCity’s largest market. This drop resulted from Indonesian operators tightening controls on subscription services on mobile phones. Despite the decline, advertiser interest in Indonesian audiences remained and kept this market in top position. Key developing markets such as India, S. Africa, Saudi Arabia and Kenya continue to grow.
India continued its growth trend, exceeding 1 billion banners delivered in the last quarter, and securing its position at number two in the rankings. The UK rose four places on the last quarter to 5th, reflecting increased advertiser interest in off-portal advertising. Saudi Arabia also saw 63% growth on the last quarter, jumping 10 spots to number nine. 
BuzzCity also reports growth in Europe, with three countries appearing in the Top 20 for the first time. These include the United Kingdom, which grew by 17% compared to Q1, 2009), France (up 26%) and Italy (up 23%).
The table below hows the top 10 countries by the number of paid advertising banners delivered in each, with the growth compared to Q1, 2009 results, shown in brackets:

1. Indonesia: 3.78 billion (-14%)
2. India: 1.07 billion (+28%)
3. United States: 487 million (-8%)
4. South Africa: 461 million (+8%)
5. United Kingdom: 133 million (+17%)
6. Philippines: 124 million (-1%)
7. Egypt: 108 million (-34%)
8. China: 95 million (-27%)
9. Saudi Arabia: 92 million (+63%)
10. Kenya: 92 million (+15%)

“Advertiser demand in developed markets continues to increase and has contributed to year on year growth of 80%,” says BuzzCity CEO, KF Lai. “This is significant for the industry and shows that advertisers in these markets are still recognizing the value of mobile Internet advertising.”
BuzzCity tracks the growth of the network and, by extension, the growth of off-portal mobile Internet use, on more than 2,000 publisher sites globally.

Netsize mPayment Tops €300m

Mobile commerce and communications enabler Netsize has revealed that the total value of transactions billed through Netsize mPayment, its mobile and online billing solution, reached €300 million in 2008, a new high for the company. Netsize mPayment processes more than 25 million transactions each month, covering more than 100 mobile operators in 28 countries. The company says it has seen an 800% year-on-year growth in transaction volumes, mainly due to growth in mobile Internet and WAP services.
“The automatic and transparent consumer authentication makes mobile purchasing easy and avoids users having to open an online account,” says Netsize Chairman and CEO, Stanislas Chesnais. “The secured transaction is initiated from a single click without entering sensitive data.”
The mPayment solution also includes an analytics component. mPayment Analytics provides customers with a billing and payment dashboard with three statistics views. The summary view shows the key performance indicators, such as revenue and transaction quantity, split by country and handset model. The real-time statistics view shows all processed transactions, allowing users to filter by up to 20 criteria.  The customized statistics view enables users to build the view by service, country, operator, or business model (subscription or pay-per-use).

comScore Focuses on Mobile Financial Services

comScore has released its inaugural study of the mobile financial services industry. The comScore report, ‘Mobile Financial Services: The Market Today & Opportunities for Tomorrow’, looks at the current state of the industry and mobile financial users, and highlights areas for potential growth in this rapidly evolving market. In conjunction with the report, comScore is hosting a supplemental webinar on 30 July, which will provides additional industry insights from comScore’s analysts.
The report leverages multiple comScore data sources to provide a comprehensive view of the mobile financial services market, including an overview of the current US mobile landscape, and insights into the mobile banking, credit card, insurance and brokerage sectors.
The report notes that mobile financial services adoption is highly dependent upon device technology and high bandwidth (3G) networks. A study of how mobile users access their banking accounts found that mobile web browsing ranked as the most popular method for both Smartphone (44.%) and 3G users (53.%), followed closely by mobile applications (48.1% of 3G users and 40.6% of Smartphone users).
The relative parity among usage of browsers vs. applications for access to mobile banking indicates the growing importance of ease of use for accessing accounts and conducting transactions. Interestingly, the percentage of mobile bankers who used SMS for access to their account information was substantially higher among 3G users (41%) than Smartphone users (25%).
“The increasing adoption of Smartphones and access to 3G networks, along with the rapid development of mobile apps, have created a fertile environment for the acceleration of mobile banking,” says comScore Senior Director, Marc Trudeau. “A seamless mobile banking user experience is necessary for this behaviour to take hold, and the convergence of the aforementioned technologies is now making mobile phones a viable access point for personal banking transactions. Financial institutions hoping to capitalize on this quickly emerging consumer banking trend need to be ahead of the curve and understand how consumers are using the mobile channel today, and how they would like to use it in the future.” 
The comScore report offers an insight into the usage patterns of mobile financial services users, including their preferred points of access. 31% of mobile customers access their financial accounts primarily from home, even though many households have PC-based Internet available as well. Another 25% conduct transactions when running errands, while 15% do so during their commute. 9% of respondents indicated that they primarily access their accounts while on vacation, and 8% do so primarily while travelling for business.
You can get more information about the report, and register for the webinar, here.

Admob Stats Reveal Extent of iPhone Browsing

With the Apple App Store celebrating its first anniversary this Saturday, 11 July, mobile ad network AdMob has released figures showing Apple’s share of the global, UK and US mobile markets, and consumer usage of iPhone apps. The latest stats reveal that the iPhone now accounts for almost half of all mobile web traffic in the UK.

iPhone Apps:

• The top iPhone apps had more than one million users in the UK in May 2009
• 5% of iPhone apps in AdMob's network had more than 100,000 active users in May 2009
• 14% of iPhone apps in AdMob's network had between 10,000 - 100,000 active users in May 2009
• 27% of iPhone apps in AdMob's network had between 1,000 - 10,000 active users in May 2009

Thomas Schulz, MD EMEA for AdMob, says that with more than 50,000 apps added to the App Store in the first 12 months, it is becoming increasingly hard for developers to capture the attention of consumers.
“Many developers are now using mobile advertising to drive downloads of their applications,” says Schulz. “Not only is this boosting sales of paid-for apps, it is also helping developers to monetise the traffic generated by their free applications.”

AdMob’s traffic figures reveal the massive disparity between Apple’s share of the Smartphone market – around 8% globally – and its share of the mobile web browsing market in May 2009, as detailed below:

UK:

• 48.7% of ad requests came from Apple handsets (iPhone and iPod Touch)
• 28.4% of ad requests came from the iPhone
• 282,493,761 ad requests from users in the UK

US:

• 45.1% of ad requests came from Apple handsets
• 25.7% of ad requests came from the iPhone
• 3,804,373,544 ad requests from users in the US

Global:

• 31.4% of ad requests came from Apple handsets
• 18.6% of ad requests came from the iPhone
• 7,997,946,483 ad requests from users around the world

With operators and handset makers launching App Stores, some question whether Apple's domainance will continue. Andrew Bud, Chairman of the Mobile Entertainment Forum, told Mobile Marketing Magazine recently:
"I believe Nokia’s Ovi store will be far more significant. With the App Store, you can reach 2% of the population; the Ovi store can reach something like 40%. One is a nice boutique, the other is Tesco.”
Given the way in which Apple has singlehandledly created the mobile apps market, however, it would be a brave man to bet against them.

LBS Set to Double in 2009, says Gartner

Worldwide consumer location-based services (LBS) subscribers and revenue are on pace to double in 2009, according to a report from the analyst, Gartner. The report, ‘Dataquest Insight: Consumer Location-Based Services, Subscribers and Revenue Forecast, 2007-2013’, notes that, despite an expected 4% decrease in mobile device sales, LBS subscribers are forecast to grow from 41 million in 2008 to 95.7 million in 2009, while revenue is anticipated to increase from $998.3 million (£615.2 million) in 2008, to $2.2 billion in 2009.
Gartner defines LBS as services that use information about the location of mobile devices, derived from cellular networks, wi-fi access points or via satellite links to receivers in (or connected to) the handsets themselves. Examples are services that enable friends to find each other, parents to locate their children, mapping and navigation. Location-based services may be offered by mobile network carriers or other providers, and are are also known as location-aware services.
“The LBS industry has matured rapidly in recent months through a mixture of consolidation, improved price/performance of the enabling technologies and compelling location applications,” says Annette Zimmermann, Senior Research Analyst at Gartner. “Factors driving the increase in the next year or so include higher availability of GPS-enabled phones, reduced prices and appearance of application stores.”
Gartner predicts that advertising-based or ‘free’ LBS (disregarding data charges) will gain more traction as users adopt it as a way to limit costs. Mobile operators that stick to the current predominant business model of charging users $5 to $10 per month plus data plans will experience high churn rates, it says, as users will look for free alternatives. In North America and Western Europe, the share of users taking advantage of free services is approximately 10-15% today and is expected to grow to 40-50% in 2013.
Gartner expects more compelling and useful applications and services, such as digital coupons to be redeemed in a nearby shop, and points-of-interest search services, to come to market in the next 12 to 18 months. It believes that smaller, niche players will survive in local markets only when they have an established user base and unique offering that larger players cannot compete with. Other players will be acquisition targets for larger vendors.
Gartner adds that LBS market dynamics vary by region. For example, North America is the largest market due to mobile operators’ strong efforts in navigation services and family-safety solutions. In Western Europe, navigation is currently the most used application, followed by local search and ‘friend finder’ applications. There is still no significant uptake of safety applications.
Japan will continue to see steady growth, as GPS has been required by law in mobile phones since 2007. In Asia/Pacific, during the summer Olympics, location services were offered for the first time in China. These are now an advertising-based solution and free to the user.
“The competitive landscape will change and most mobile carriers need to alter their approach toward offering LBS and dealing with developers,” says Zimmermann. “Subscriber growth will hinge on ‘free’ - disregarding data charges - services. Mobile operators’ initiatives to open up the application programming interface (API) to third-party developers will help them compete against other players in the market, and will also be beneficial to the different parties involved, down to the end user.”
There’s more information about the report here.

Mobile Games Under the Spotlight

The Multimedia Research Consultancy (TMRC) has issued its latest report on the mobile games industry. The report is based on an online survey of its global panel of mobile games industry experts. The survey was carried out in April and May 2009 among 128 mostly senior-level executives from 118 mobile games enterprises in 40 countries. 74% were involved in development, 38% in publishing, 20% in content aggregation, 26% in distribution and 22% in running portals
The report covers a range of subjects, including the anticipated impact of app stores and social networking on the mobile games distribution landscape over the next two - five years.
“Our research suggests that we are clearly at a tipping point in mobile games distribution, with over half of mobile games enterprises agreeing (with the statement): ‘Today’s distribution landscape will be unrecognisable in five years time’,” says TMRC Managing Director, Vic Whiting. “In fact, they expect that within a couple of years, consumers will overwhelmingly prefer to buy their mobile games from handset manufacturers’ app stores.
“Not surprisingly, we found that the Apple App Store’s meteoric rise is expected to continue – mobile games distribution via this channel is expected to nearly double over the next two years. Nevertheless, competition in the app store space is expected to intensify and we have identified the names of which app stores are likely to succeed and perhaps, more importantly, which ones are likely to struggle going forward.”
Another area examined by the survey is the potential offered by social networking sites to sell and promote mobile games. The results reveal that the industry is currently in two minds about social networking sites - perceiving them as part mystery, part opportunity. Nevertheless, says TMRC, in spite of reservations, mobile games enterprises are planning to embrace social networking in their future marketing and distribution strategies, so much so that only a minority will not be using social networking sites in two years time. The report identifies those social networking sites which will feature strongly in their plans.
Overall, the research points to the mobile games industry increasingly favouring a more direct route to market, taking out, where possible, the middlemen. However, as the success of app stores continues, the biggest challenge for games suppliers will be how to secure visibility for their products, as the number of games on each online store grows rapidly.
“In fact, we believe the industry faces a re-run of an earlier conundrum – namely how to attain visibility and prominence on operator decks,” says Whiting.
The report costs $750 (£460). There’s more information here.

Juniper Report Analyses Mobile Messaging Prospects

Mobile messaging revenues are set for measured growth over the next five years, as market forces take effect. That’s the conclusion of the latest report from Juniper Research, ‘Mobile Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution: Players, Strategies & Forecasts 2009-2014’.
The report concludes that SMS, MMS, mobile email and IM (Instant Messaging) traffic volumes will continue their inexorable rise, but nots also that the IP evolution is resulting in disruptive business models, increased competition from the web, and commoditisation of established services.
It also finds that the move from per-transaction to per-month billing models, incorporating up to unlimited data and messaging bundles, will see total P2P (peer-to-peer) revenues in Western and Eastern Europe post declines, balanced to some extent by a healthy rise in revenues in developing markets, plus growth in ad-funded tariffs. Meanwhile, web-based communities will continue to integrate new messaging mediums, which could impact operator revenues in the increasingly open mobile web-browsing environment.
The report investigates the future for the mobile messaging market, providing forecasts and analysis for both network-based services (SMS, MMS) and IP-based services (Mobile Email and Instant Messaging). It includes a discussion about the shift in the mobile messaging dynamic, looking at how the social web will drive evolution in the messaging world, in combination with the emerging paradigm brought about by IP-based messaging services.
Key projections within the forecasting suite include total global revenues, forecast by region and by product sector; mobile messaging user numbers and annual volumes of messaging by product; volumes of paid-for messages and total operator-billed revenues; and total mobile messaging advertising revenues.
The report also explores a number of business models, such as value-chain disruption, evolution of mobile networks, and the emergence of mobile ad-funded tariffs, plus the various types of value-added services being developed to complement the growing number of messaging services available.
It also considers the following questions:

• What is the market opportunity for mobile messaging services?
• What are the factors driving market demand and evolution, and where are the various services being adopted?
• How are services delivered and revenues derived?
• Who comprises the value chain & what strategies are they adopting?
• How do next-generation mobile messaging services, convergence and VAS (Value Addes Services) impact current offerings?
• Who uses mobile messaging services, and what are the various use case scenarios?
• What are the enabling technologies and industry/standards developments?

The report costs £1,750 for a single-user PDF or hardback copy; £2,500 for a multi- user licence; or £3,750 for an enterprise-wide licence.
There’s more information here. And you can download a free Whitepaper here.

Roaming Warning

With the new data roaming regulations that came into force yesterday, much of the talk has centred on the welcome news that it’s going to cost less to go talk, text and sruf the mobile web on your phone in the EU from now on. But independent consumer website Broadband Genie has issued a warning, reminding consumers of the cost of using USB dongles to surf the web on your laptop abroad. It points out that downloading one TV show via mobile broadband while abroad on holiday could cost more than the rest of the trip combined.
As of yesterday, the wholesale cost of data in the EU (ie, what suppliers pay each other) was capped at €1 euro per MB by the European Commission. UK mobile broadband providers 3, T-Mobile and Vodafone have all reduced prices to £1.50 per MB or less for EU roaming. However, this is still much more expensive than UK data roaming, while non-EU roaming can still cost more than £6 per MB. There’s a full list of data roaming charges here.
Broadband Genie notes that a single TV episode can comprise between 200MB - 550MB of data, depending on sound and picture quality. A film will be anywhere from 700MB to more than 1.5GB. At £6 per MB then, that must-see episode of ‘The Wire’ (at, say, 350MB) could set you back more than £2,000, while a DVD quality film could cost around £9,000 in data charges. Even at Vodafone's market-leading rate of £9.99 for 50MB in the EU, a 350MB show would cost £70, while customers on 3 or T-Mobile would be looking at an EU bill around £500.
“The most popular services such as the BBC iPlayer and Sky Player only work in the UK, but there are many ways to download shows and films online,” says Broadband Genie Editor, Chris Marling. “If you feel you have to take a UK mobile broadband dongle on holiday, make sure everyone understands it's for basic browsing only. Otherwise, you could be in for a nasty surprise on your return.”

Operators Missing Out on Roaming Revenues, says Acision

Research released by messaging company Acision suggests that the EU roaming legislation which came into force yesterday will be widely embraced by consumers, since only 12% of people currently use their mobile abroad as much as they do at home.  
Acision commissioned Toluna, the online market research panel provider, to carry out the research among a nationally representative sample of 2,000 UK mobile phone users aged 16 and over from 12 – 13 June 2009.
Operators are missing crucial revenue opportunities, the company says, as the research reveals that consumers are abandoning their usual mobile habits, despite their appetite for browsing the Internet, updating their social networking status, and talking and texting when holidaying. Over two thirds (62%) of consumers admit to not knowing how much it costs to use their phone abroad and only one in 10 feel they are being charged a fair price. Acision’s Flexible Charger is designed to overcome this issue by allowing operators to provide real-time billing transparency for their customers.
The research shows that if consumers were able to set a limit on their spending when using their mobile phone abroad, 42% would use their mobile more. Similarly, if operators were to offer more specific bundles for subscribers when abroad, targeted at individual usage patterns, 67% of consumers would buy a bundle to phone or text those at home. 30% would buy a bundle to talk and text with fellow travellers, while 11% would buy a data package to access the Internet.
 “The EU roaming legislation is a step in the right direction, but for a growing percentage of consumers, this isn’t going far enough, as they want to access data services such as mobile Internet and social networking applications just like they do at home, and this remains costly,” says Mike Beech, VP, Product Management at Acision. “Our research reveals that consumers would be put at ease and would actually use their mobile phone more when abroad if they were able to view their real-time spending.”

Don't Call Me, and I Won't Call You

A multi-country study released today by research firm Lightspeed Research shows the increasingly prominent role that mobile phones are taking in our lives, and highlights the fact that for some people at least, the ability to make voice calls is now a redundant feature.
With ownership of mobile phones so high and so many different functions now available, Lightspeed says it is increasingly important to understand how people are using their mobile phones and what future opportunities there might be for new applications. To this end, the company surveyed 1,000 respondents online in each of four countries - the UK, France, Germany and the US  - between 11 and 15 June.  
Of the four countries surveyed, it was Americans (49%) and Britons (30%) who were most likely to agree that their mobile phone was now an essential part of their daily life and they’d be lost without it. 46% of people in Britain said they carried their phones with them most of the time, though surprisingly, it was 55-64 year olds who were most likely to do so. (I wonder how many brands are targeting that demographic via mobile – Ed.)
Younger respondents (18-34) were the most likely to feel their mobile was an essential part of their daily life and that they would be lost without it”. And two thirds (67%) of Brits leave their mobiles on at night - and only 14% of those switch it to silent.
Perhaps the most interesting finding from the survey is that in some markets, there are users who never make phone calls from their mobile. In the UK 11% of respondents never make calls; that figure is higher in the US at 13%. 33% of UK and 18% of US respondents make no more than two calls a week. Texting is hugely popular in the UK with half (49%) sending at least one SMS per day and 2% sending a picture or video message (MMS) daily. Women like to send more text messages than men – with 56% compared to 42% sending at least one text per day; men make more daily voice calls – 41% compared to 32% of women. 

Picture this
Mobile phones have evolved with new features such as cameras, games, Internet access and music now commonplace on basic handsets while Smartphones offer even more sophisticated applications such as video. And the results of the survey show that in fact these functions are becoming increasingly popular. In the UK, the most popular daily function is browsing the web at 9%, whilst on a weekly basis it’s taking photos (38% of respondents), followed jointly by browsing the web and playing games (22%) and sending a photo or video (18%).

Have mobile, will travel
Respondents were also asked about a number of new functions that they might like on their phone. In all countries a satellite navigation system was the top choice, with 49% of French, 44% of German, 43% of British and 38% of American respondents choosing that option. Being able to locate friends, family and children in real time through GPS functionality was the second preference in all markets except for Germany, where concerns over privacy prevailed. However it seems that the Japanese system of using the mobile phone to pay for public transport (like an Oyster card) isn’t a popular option – this failed to generate interest everywhere except Germany. Amongst the reasons given for rejecting this function included worries about making the phone a target for theft, concerns about cost, and fears of giving too much data to the phone company.
Commenting on the results, David Day, CEO of Lightspeed Research says:
“There is no question that the mobile phone is an important tool for daily life for many of the people we surveyed, and that many people use the additional phone applications such as photos, video, music and the Internet. However, when we look at take up of some of the current functions, as well as those we may have in the future, consumers do express some concerns. There is real fear around data security and the increased risk of theft, and this is something the industry as a whole will need to address to encourage consumers to try new functionality such as mobile commerce.”

Analysis Reveals Top Global Operators

New analysis from Wireless Intelligence reveals that the top 20 mobile operators and operator groups ranked by total connections represented over 58% of global mobile connections in Q1 09. This collective footprint totals 2.4 billion connections and spans 118 of the 223 global markets tracked by Wireless Intelligence.
In first position is China Mobile, which accounts for 11.5% of the total global connections across its fully-owned interests in China and Hong Kong. With a combined 479 million connections, China Mobile surpasses any other aggregated group in the global study by a factor of two.
Vodafone Group takes second position with 247 million total connections across the 19 markets in which it holds a majority stake in an operator. Vodafone's most recent expansion comes via Ghana, India and the imminent commercial launch in Qatar. UK-based Vodafone has majority-holdings in 10 markets in its home region of Western Europe, the remainder falling across Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.
Two groups are in close contention for third and fourth place: Spain's Telefónica and Mexico's América Móvil. The two groups’ respective footprints outline the intense competition between the two; Telefónica and América Móvil operate in 13 of the same markets in Latin America, with the latter running a close second place for connections worldwide, despite Telefónica’s heavy European presence.
Overall within the top 20, the study found that the next-generation connections base represents less than 20% of total connections. This is due to two main factors. Firstly, certain groups have footprints in regions where next-generation network deployment is at an early stage (China), or the majority of licence awards have yet to take place (India). Secondly, it highlights the expansion of the predominately European-based groups into the emerging markets.
“High penetration in mature markets is slowing the opportunity for organic growth, as operators push for multiple connections per customer and secondary data connections,” says Wireless Intelligence Analyst, Will Croft. “At the other end of the spectrum, the emerging markets still produce lucrative profit-making ventures and phenomenal growth. We are seeing more consolidation than ever before, as mergers and acquisitions drive non-organic growth in the mature markets, while expansion into the emerging markets remains a key priority for the larger operator groups.”

Informa Charts Latin American 3G Growth

Latin America’s mobile operators are pushing data services in order to offset falling voice revenues and satisfy consumers’ growing hunger for value-added products. That helped make 2008 the year of 3G in Latin America, where virtually every Latin American mobile operator launched 3G services. So says Informa Telecoms & Media, which notes that there were more than 6.8 million active WCDMA connections across Latin America at end March 2009, up 50% in just one quarter. Possibly the most striking growth of all has been in Brazil, where there were 3.8 million WCDMA subscriptions at end-March 2009, up from 2.2 million three months earlier.
“We can expect that number to continue to accelerate, because America Movil has made it clear that its investment priority in the region for 2009 concerns its 3G network,” says Informa Senior Research Analyst, said Eva Benguigui.
Informa says it expects investments in 3G networks will accelerate across Latin America. For instance, there will be more than 15 million WCDMA subscriptions in Latin America at end-2009, or less than 3% of the total 522 million mobile subscriptions in the region. However, WCDMA subscriptions will grow to 320 million at end 2014, or 46% of the region’s 689 million total mobile subscriptions at that time.
While the region’s operators are focused primarily on 3G today, Informa believes that mobile broadband technologies such as HSPA, HSPA+ and LTE will be on their technology migration paths as they continue to expand next-generation services in order to offset falling voice revenues with higher data revenues.
However, LTE deployments in Latin America are expected to be a challenge since spectrum is congested in many areas. Nonetheless, operators across the Americas are expected to continue aggressively rolling out mobile broadband networks over the coming years where they have adequate spectrum availability, graduating from today’s 3G and 3.5G networks to faster offerings promised by LTE and, in some cases, WiMAX.

AdMob Report Examines Apps Usage

Mobile ad network AdMob has released its Mobile Metrics Report for May 2009. The report examines the distribution of consumer usage of iPhone applications, noting that in less than one year, the Apple App Store has grown to more than 50,000 applications and given consumers access to applications with broad consumer appeal, as well as a long tail of niche applications that serve specific segments.
The report reveals that some of the top apps were accessed by more than 1 million users in May.  Few applications may reach this level of success, says AdMob, but there is also significant percentage of popular applications have built a strong base of tens of thousands of users. The long tail of applications that make up the majority of the App Store generated a minority of the total usage. 
“While the growth in the number of applications in the Apple App Store over the past year has been nothing short of dramatic, it has made it increasingly difficult for iPhone developers to drive consumer discoverability of their apps,” says Thomas Schulz, AdMob’s Vice President and Managing Director, EMEA. “AdMob offers developers the ability to monetise their application, and to create awareness of it with a targeted ad campaign.”  
Highlights from the report include:

• 5% of applications had more than 100,000 active users in May 2009, representing 116 applications in AdMob’s iPhone network.
• 14% of applications had between 10,000 - 100,000 active users, representing 322 applications.
• 54% of applications had less than 1,000 active users, representing 1,244 applications. 
• The average iPhone user in AdMob’s network accessed four applications in May.
• Five days after its launch, the iPhone 3.0 Operating System (OS) represented 44% of iPhone ad requests. In contrast, only 1% of iPod Touch requests came from devices running the iPhone 3.0 OS.
• AdMob reached 15.1 million unique users on iPhone and iPod touch devices on 2,309 applications in its network in May, the vast majority of which were free to download. 

You can access the full report here.

 

Opera Reveals Mobile Web Trends

Browser company Opera has released its latest ‘State of the Mobile Web’ report, which charts the top global trends on the mobile web among Opera Mini browser users. In addition to the top trends and country snapshots, the report highlights trends in Southeast Asia and looks at search engine usage on the mobile web.
Global trends: 

• In May 2009, Opera Mini had nearly 25.4 million users, an 8.4% increase from April 2009 and a 136% increase on May 2008. These numbers reflect only the Opera Mini users who have specifically chosen to install the browser on their phone.
• Those 25.4 million Opera Mini users viewed over 9.6 billion pages in May 2009. Since April, page views have gone up 11%. Since May 2008, page views have increased by 227%.
• Opera Mini users generated almost 160 million MB of data for operators worldwide in May 2009, a 5.6% increase on the figure for April, and a 254% increase on May 2008.

Mobile Search trends:

• Google continues to assert itself as a global leader in search, but Yandex and Baidu continue to be the top players in Russia and China, respectively, while Yahoo is strong in Indonesia and Nigeria.
• Opera Mini users in India and Nigeria are the biggest users of search portals. In India, 16.3% of page views are from search portals, and users view an average of 63.7 search portal pages per month. In Nigeria, 26.6% of page views are from search portals, and users view an average of 49.6 search portal pages per month.

Southeast Asia trends:

• The top nine countries using Opera Mini in Southeast Asia are Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Brunei, Singapore, Cambodia and Laos.
• Between May 2008 and May 2009, overall page views in the top nine countries increased 459%.
• Growth rates in Southeast Asia remain high: Vietnam leads the top 9 countries with 412.9% growth in users this year, followed by the Philippines (353.6% growth) and Malaysia (249.6% growth).
• Nokia handsets continue to be dominant in Southeast Asia, followed by Sony Ericsson.

UK Snapshot - Top 10 sites in the UK, based on the number of unique users: 

1. Facebook.com 
2. Google.com 
3. Yahoo.com
4. BBC.co.uk
5. Live.com
6. Wikipedia.org
7. Bebo.com
8. Youtube.com
9. My.opera.com 
10. Hotmail.com

“Searching the web via a mobile device presents an enormous opportunity for both search engines and consumers,” says Opera CEO, Jon von Tetzchner. “Almost all search engines are moving forward to offer relevant and timely information based on location. Yet, consumers prefer services from the search engines they already know and use. As the mobile web becomes more pervasive and more people have their first experience on the web from a mobile device, it will be fascinating to see how these habits might change.”
You can download the full report for free here.

Ad-funded MMS To Hit $8.7bn by 2014, says Juniper

Ad-funded MMS revenues are set to take-off over the next five years, with annual growth rates reaching 94% to deliver revenues of $8.7 billion (£5.4 billion) by 2014. That’s the conclusion of new mobile messaging research from Juniper Research, ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution’. The study finds that the Far East and China will lead the global ad-funded MMS market by a considerable margin, followed by North America and Western Europe.
The number of brands using MMS as an advertising medium is growing rapidly, says Juniper, with push MMS and SMS being employed to great effect in both mature and emerging markets. Crucially, this has enabled network operators to support ad-funded voice and SMS tariffs, and combat falling ARPU, while providing brands with new advertising channels.
The report also forecasts that the number of mobile email users will climb by 21% to reach 1.1 billion in 2014; and that SMS’ share of total global P2P (person-to-person) mobile messaging revenues will decline by 18% over the forecast period.
“Despite the global economic meltdown, mobile messaging continues to grow significantly,” says Steve Reynolds, Chairman of the Mobile Data Association. “This report provides valuable intelligence to empower mobile messaging-centric businesses in developing future demand-based commercial strategies.”
The report notes the significant influence of social networking and Web 2.0 applications on both operator and vendor strategies. RIM in particular, says Juniper, has broken new ground in the consumer market with the addition of custom-built social networking applications for Facebook and MySpace, plus AOL instant messaging and other applications. For these reasons, Juniper has awarded RIM its Future Mobile Gold Award for Mobile Messaging.
“The inclusion of popular messaging and social networking applications has broadened its appeal and ensured the BlackBerry has maintained its position as a compelling mobile messaging device,” says report Author and Future Mobile Awards panel judge, Ian Chard.
Other mobile messaging vendors such as Acision, Airwide Solutions and Miyowa were noted for driving significant innovation, but the Silver Award for Mobile Messaging was given to SpinVox, for its ‘Voice-to-Text’ messaging service.
Mobile Messaging whitepaper and further details of the study ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution: Players, Strategies & Forecasts 2009-2014’ can be freely downloaded for free from the Juniper website.

Mobile Entertainment Business in Confident Mood says MEF

The findings of the latest MEF (Mobile Entertainment Forum) Business Confidence Index (BCI), reveal that the global mobile entertainment industry, which the MEF says is worth the $32 billion (£20 billion), remains in confident mood, despite the current economic challenges, predicting average revenue growth of 28% for the coming year. The Mobile Entertainment Forum (MEF) BCI is compiled by KPMG and the full results of the second BCI will be revealed at the 9th annual Mobile Entertainment Market conference today.
Commenting on the findings, Andrew Bud, Global Chair of MEF, says:
“A vital part of MEF’s mission is to provide insight in to the market and the BCI is a uniquely valuable tool to do so. This second release begins to reveal the trends in the industry and confirms its optimism about the future.
 “In spite of an incredibly difficult economic landscape, the prediction for average revenue growth in the mobile content sector is up 1% on the annual growth prediction from the last BCI to 28%. This echoes the finding that 81% of respondents are as confident about the future of their organisation as they were at the end of last year.”
The analysis also shows that the ‘marketing mix’ of communication channels within the industry is evolving. Mark Harding, Director of Digital Content at KPMG, notes that more organisations in the mobile entertainment value chain are moving their marketing budget towards the industry’s own platform of mobile, at the expense of online and sponsorship and events.
The MEF BCI is conducted on a quarterly basis, with a report on the findings of the Business Confidence Index available to MEF members via the MEF website. 

Vesta Releases Prepaid Top-up Survey Results

Vesta Corporation, which specialises in electronic payment solutions, has released the results of an independent research study that it says indicates how an effective prepaid top-up strategy can deliver significant value to the prepaid mobile market. The study, based on operator interviews, shows that the implementation of a direct operator top-up strategy can bring double digit revenue gains and reduced costs.
Given the size of the prepaid market in Western Europe, says Vesta, this can equate to hundreds of millions of Euros annually. Direct operator top-up channels include all operator-managed top-up channels that rely on electronic transactions outside a retail environment, such as the operator’s website, IVR and handset applications.
Vesta says the research indicates the significant advantages that direct operator prepaid top-up has over other existing top-up methods, including improved performance metrics, lower costs and improved CRM capabilities.
In addition, it notes, direct handset top-up has the ability to remove the fragmentation and complexity impacting the take up of m-payment services, and drive new revenue streams for operators.
The research was carried out by independent telecom consultancy Northstream and is based on the feedback of leading wireless operators across Western Europe. The results have been published in a whitepaper, ‘Time to Top-Up the Prepaid User Experience: How an effective top-up strategy can improve operator performance metrics and accelerate mobile payments’.
According to the whitepaper, with overall growth in the prepaid market slowing, operators are looking at ways to reduce costs, while increasing prepaid customer loyalty and revenues. Non-cash (credit/debit card/bank) payment penetration has grown significantly in Europe, and 91% of operators interviewed intend to drive top-up transactions from costly, commission-based retail infrastructures to virtual non-cash top-up (NCTU) channels.
Aligned with this view, says Vesta, not only are operators exploring alternatives to retail top-up, but 100% of those interviewed want to shift their non-cash payment mechanisms from a bank-centric to a direct operator model.
Given this finding, the company says, it is somewhat surprising that less than 20% of the NCTU offerings analyzed in the research included handset-based top-up applications, even though top-up frequency using handset applications can be up to 80% higher than other channels. This increased frequency also results in an ARPU increase of 23%.
The main imperatives stated for adopting a direct top-up approach were avoiding zero credit service interruptions, increasing top-up frequency and improving customer experience with anytime, anywhere top-up availability via  handsets, the web and IVR. However, the research also indicated the ability of direct top-up to enhance CRM capabilities, enabling operators to identify high value customers and cross-sell, while customizing and optimizing user experience. Indeed, over 90% of operators interviewed highlighted the need to strengthen the way that top-up integrates with their online services and other operator-controlled channels.
“When prepaid direct top-up is executed properly, it not only offers an opportunity to increase the ARPU of prepaid but also provides the foundation for operators to seamlessly offer a wide range of profitable mobile payment services from the same platform,” says Vesta CMO, Chris Parsons. “Aside from prepaid debit reload, other services such as peer-to-peer transfer, international remittance and mobile commerce become far more readily accessible”.
You can download the whitepaper here.

Apple Sells a Million iPhones in Three Days

Apple has sold over 1 million iPhone 3GS models through Sunday, 21 June, the third day after its launch. In addition, 6 million customers have downloaded the new iPhone 3.0 software in the first five days since its release.
The new iPhone 3GS comes in 16GB and 32GB versions and offers longer battery life, a 3 megapixel autofocus camera, video recording and hands free voice control. iPhone 3GS includes the new iPhone OS 3.0, which offers over 100 new features such as Cut, Copy and Paste, MMS, Spotlight Search, and a landscape keyboard.  
“Customers are voting and the iPhone is winning,” says Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. “With over 50,000 applications available from Apple’s revolutionary App Store, iPhone momentum is stronger than ever.”

Targeting Key to Mobile Advertising's Future, says Xtract

Leading research organisations including the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) and Juniper Research have recently released reports on the current mobile advertising market and its future.
This year represents the first time truly quantitative research has become available on mobile advertising, but the numbers indicate conflicting trends in this nascent market, according to Jouko Ahvenainen, Co-founder and VP at Xtract, which provides social intelligence software for mobile operators.
Ahvenainen notes that while the first expenditure study on mobile advertising in the UK, carried out by the IAB and PWC, showed that the mobile ad market is growing 99.2% year on year, a report from Juniper Research released this month indicates that by 2014, mobile advertising would still only account for up to 1.5% of total global adspend, despite mobile advertising offering “substantially higher” response rates than advertising in other media.
“There is clearly a conflicting trend at present,” says Ahvenainen. “Mobile ads are the most interactive, compelling form of advertising for many brands, and offer far better response and clickthrough rates when they are done well. And usage of the mobile web is growing rapidly. Other forms of media are struggling to sell advertising - in particular newspapers - and are shutting down. Yet even in five years, mobile advertising is predicted to remain a mere drop in the ocean in terms of overall global ad spend.”
Ahvenainen believes the conflicting reports are leaving the industry scratching its head about how to cash in on the promise of mobile advertising, and that targeting and accountability are key. 
“One thing that we constantly hear from advertisers and marketers, who hold the purse strings, is that they need far more intricate levels of targeting than are generally available today, as well as measurability, accountability, and clearly defined ROI, in order to choose mobile over other media platforms,” he says. “Clearly, highly-targeted advertising that can be measured back is the way to continue the upward trend in mobile ads. If marketers can't see exactly who they are targeting, and understand the likely behaviours of these customers socially, they can't trust the most personal advertising channel available today, and mobile will continue to be insignificant in the overall global ads picture.”

AdMob Reveals iPhone User Trends

Mobile ad network AdMob has released new research on the demographics and behavioural characteristics of iPhone and iPod touch users in the US. The research reveals that while there are many similarities between users of the two devices, key differences in the demographic makeup of each group exist in areas such as age and household income. The research was conducted by comScore on AdMob’s iPhone network of mobile websites and applications, making it representative of AdMob, but not necessarily of the mobile population overall.
The research found that 5 in 10 consumers on both iPhone and iPod touch devices use the mobile web more frequently than they read printed newspapers. More than 40% reported using the Internet on their mobile device more often than using the Internet from their computers or listening to the radio. 
Other findings include:

• iPhone users are generally older. 69% of iPod touch users are between 13-24 years of age, while this same age segment represents just 26% of iPhone users. 31% of iPhone users are 35-49 years old, while only 12% of iPod touch users fall in this age segment. In total, 74% of iPhone users are over the age of 25, compared to 31percent of iPod touch users.
• More than 70% of users on both the iPhone and iPod touch are male.
• In line with the older demographic composition of iPhone users, they also have higher incomes. 78% of iPhone users have an annual household income of at least $25,000, compared to only 66% of iPod touch users. 
• iPhone users are more likely to have children than iPod touch users, most likely due to the age difference in the two groups. 46% of iPhone users have children, compared to only 28% of iPod touch users. 
• In the next six months, iPhone users plan to buy clothing (57%); entertainment (47%); and travel (45%); while iPod touch users plan to buy clothing (61%); entertainment (53%); and cell (mobile) phones (36%).

“This research highlights how important it is for marketers to understand the mobile landscape and the characteristics of the users of a particular platform or mobile device,” says comScore Vice President, Loftlon Worth.  “Putting a little extra effort into the planning process can help a mobile campaign be significantly more successful.”
comScore and AdMob conducted the research in the first half of 2009. Participants were visitors to domains within the AdMob iPhone network who were shown survey invitation banners rather than banner ads.  Those who clicked through the survey banner were presented with the mobile survey. The total sample size of iPod touch participants is 3,848, while the total number of participants in the iPhone sample is 3,454. All results were tested for statistically significant differences at the 95% confidence level.

Data to Drive AsiaPac Growth, says Informa

Annual mobile service revenues in the Asia Pacific region will increase by more than 16% from the end of this year to $326.4 billion (£200.4 million) by end-2013, with growth driven by the continuing rise in mobile subscriptions, and greater usage of data services.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from Informa Telecoms & Media: ‘Asia Pacific: Mobile Market Analysis and Forecasts’. The report forecasts that the region’s total subscriptions base will increase by over 500 million, or almost 25%, from 2.03 billion at end-2009 to 2.53 billion at end-2013. “The robust growth will be spurred in particular by immense expansion in China and India, and also higher-than-expected subscription increases in developing markets such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam,” says Informa Senior Analyst, Nicole McCormick.
Prepaid connections will continue to be the primary tariff option, Informa predicts, with the number of prepaid users rising from 1.52 billion in 2009 to 1.97 billion by 2013, accounting for approximately 90% of total net additions. As a result, prepaid penetration in the regional will rise from 74.8% in 2009 to 77.7% in 2013.
“Continued growth is being prompted in most markets by operators’ expansion into rural regions, as mobile take-up in large cities reaches full saturation,” says McCormick. She adds that leading operators in China and India already claim that more than 50% of their quarterly net additions now come from rural customers.
But with subscriptions growth being driven by low-income segments, ARPU is also being adversely affected. Informa Telecoms & Media forecasts that blended ARPU across the region will fall from $12.33 in 2009 to $10.88 in 2013.
At the same time, the region is fast becoming a powerhouse of wireless-broadband take-up, with cheap HSPA services helping to fuel both the growth in subscriptions and in revenues. As voice revenues level off, and actually decline towards the end of the period, data revenues are forecast to rise from 30% of total revenues in 2009 to 38% by end-2013.
Overall penetration will rise from 53.4% at end-2009 to 64% by end-2013, while actual subscriber penetration increasing from 42.9 to 51.2% over the same period. The difference in subscriber versus subscription penetration shows the importance of multi-SIM ownership, Informa notes, with each subscriber owning, on average, 1.24 SIM cards in 2009, and 1.25 SIM cards in 2013.

US Local Mobile Search On the Up, says comScore

New figures from comScore reveal that the number of people in the US who sought local information on a mobile device grew 51% between March 2008 and March 2009. comScore defines “local information” as searching for information on maps, movies, business directories or restaurants.
The mobile browser is the leading access method for seeking local information, with 20.7 million users in March 2009, up 34% versus a year ago. The strongest growth in the category, however, is coming from downloaded applications, which grew 83% year on year, followed by SMS at 72%. Despite the attention mobile applications have received from developers, carriers and device OEMs, however, they remain the least mode of accessing local information via mobile, with 11.3 million users in March. A marginally more often used channel for obtaining local information is SMS, with 11.7 million users, and an impressive. Overwhelmingly, though, the preferred mode to access local content remains the mobile browser.
Among the various local content categories, the number of people accessing online directories has seen the greatest increase during the past year (73%), followed by restaurants (70%), maps (63%) and movies (60%).
“Given the explosion in application stores and associated marketing efforts, along with the growth in mobile phones using faster data networks, it would not be surprising within the next six months to see the number of people using downloadable applications surpass SMS for the accessing of local information via mobile devices,” says comScore Senior Vice President, Serge Matta.
Across the board, local search-focused Internet brands have been developing mobile content at a feverish pace, says comScore. AT&T Interactive, for example, has made a significant effort to expand its Yellowpages.com online experience across several mobile platforms.
“We’re focused on extending the Yellowpages.com experience to mobile through our popular downloadable apps, SMS search, and mobile web apps,” says AT&T Interactive CMO, Matt Crowley. “In addition, we power local search for AT&T’s MEdiaNet portal and have our YP.com mobile client preinstalled on capable AT&T Smartphones and feature phones. As a result of this strategy, we’ve seen our reach extended by 6% for our combined online and mobile unique web visitor audience.”

Impact of New Mobile Games Platforms Analyzed

Analyst Screen Digest has released its latest repoprt, ‘New Mobile Games Platforms: Challenges and opportunities’.
The report examines the impact on the mobile games market of the new platforms and distribution channels that have sprung up in the wake of Apple’s success with the iPhone, iPod Touch and the App Store. It also looks at how top publishers have responded to the developments in the market, and offers profiles of the mobile games markets in major North American and European countries. The report covers 27 countries, with a particular focus on the key North American and Western European markets.
Screen Digest believes that new mobile games platforms for Smartphone devices will boost the mobile games industry, which has shown signs of slowing. Growth in the operator distributed mobile games market, which peaked at over 50% in 2004 and 2005, will drop to just 7% in 2009, it says. New platforms such as iPhone, N-Gage and Android will help grow the market for mobile games outside operators’ portals. In total, games for new platforms accounted for no more than 15% of mobile games revenues in the major North American and European markets in 2008.

Apple in control
Whilst Nokia’s N-Gage games platform and Google’s Android Market application store also have the potential to grow the market for mobile games outside operators’ portals, it is Apple that has the key elements to retain its position at the head of the market, the report notes.
A range of mobile players, including operators, device manufacturers, platform providers and third party retailers have all launched their own stores; but Screen Digest research suggests that games for Apple’s iPhone accounted for over $100 million (£62 million) in revenues in the second half of 2008, taking more than 10% of the North American mobile games market.
It is Apple’s combination of high-end appealing hardware, a large developer community, and easy to use retail environment, for which it had already built a strong billing relationship with consumers, that has enabled Apple to maintain its lead, the report concludes.
While new platforms and sales channels will grow the market for mobile games outside operators’ portals, the market for games from operators will, in the short to medium term, remain the largest. Screen Digest believes that the trend for new platforms and application stores, which offer developers a greater share of revenues, a more receptive audience, and a wider array of content, will see smaller publishers reduce or abandon development of games for release through existing operator-run portals. With their operator deals already in place, this trend will present the big publishers with the opportunity to consolidate their lead at the top of the largest market for mobile games.

The App Store effect
For the big publishers, the greatest impact of the iPhone and App Store may not be in the extra revenues derived from selling games through the store, but in the effect of the App Store’s business model on the wider mobile games market. The report notes that awareness of mobile games has increased, and the success of the business model has already persuaded some network operators to lower their revenue shares and move towards their own application stores. The 70% share of revenues offered to developers by Apple is now practically the default minimum that new store owners offer to developers and publishers.
“At the moment, Apple is out in front, in terms of user experience, range of content and in generating consumer and developer interest in mobile games for its devices,” says Screen Digest Research Analyst, Jack Kent. “While the market for mobile games on the App Store is strong, iPhone users still only account for a tiny proportion of the market. In Q4 2008, iPhone shipments made up less than 2% of total handset shipments. Handset manufacturers and network operators currently adopt a ‘one store for all’ approach, although platform-specific and on-device stores stand the best chance of success, as far as mobile games are concerned.”
The report costs £595 for a printed copy, or £1,190 for an electronic (PDF) version.There's more information about the report here.

Bango Posts 28% Revenue Increase

Bango has announced its Preliminary Results for the year ended 31 March 2009. Revenues were up 28% to £17.6 million, and up 61% between the first and second half of FY09. Gross margins were down slightly on last year at £2.66 million (£2.77 million). The loss for the year before tax and share-based payments reduced from £1.58 million to £0.58 million.  (£1.58m).
Bango reports that end user spend increased 69% between the first and second half of the year, while several major US customers began their transition from using Premium SMS aggregators to Bango during the year, causing a five-fold increase in US revenues. Bango Analytics, the new Mobile Marketing product line, launched in February 2008, now has more than 50 paying customers, including major brands.
“After a year in which we focused on improving our sales and marketing productivity, we have seen strong growth in revenues,” says Bango CEO, Ray Anderson. “We enter the new year close to break even on a monthly basis, with significantly lowered costs of sale, and strong signs that mobile web usage is accelerating.”
Bango’s shares rose 5.06% (2p) to 41.5p on the back of the results.

Flirtomatic Reveals US Usage Figures

Mobile and online flirting service Flirtomatic has revealed some of the initial patterns it has been seeing since its US launch in earlier this year. 
Flirtomatic’s US push began in February, and since then, it says, numbers have been growing strongly from an initial test marketing push, giving clear evidence that demand is there. Users in the US are logging into the service over five times, and sending 26 messages, daily. Both stats, the company says, are surprisingly similar to the UK user stats, given the early stage of the service there, and overall user numbers. Anecdotally, it adds, it seems that people in the US love flirting with Brits and vice versa, which is delivering critical mass earlier than expected. Also so far, 36% of US users are enjoying Flirtomatic on an iPhone.
As part of Flirtomatic's push forward, the company is aiming to build long-term, profitable relationships with US operators. To this end, it has hired Gary Cohen to cultivate the growth of the service in the country, and establish Flirtomatic with US operators.
Cohen has spent 14 years of his career with US mobile network operators, including US West Cellular (now Verizon Wireless) and AT&T Mobility, building high performance sales teams, opening new markets and innovative channels of distribution.

Opera Regains Mobile Browser Supremacy

Opera is the world's number one mobile browser, overtaking the iPhone’s Safari browser in May according to data from StatCounter Global Stats. In May, Opera took 24.6% of the worldwide market, compared to 22.3% for iPhone. Nokia retains third place with 17.9%. BlackBerry is in fourth place, with 6.9% of the global market. If the iPod Touch is included, however, Apple browsers still lead, with the iPod Touch alone taking 14.9% of the market in May.
StatCounter, which provides free website traffic analysis, records in excess of 10 billion pageloads per month. In March, it launched StatCounter Global Stats, a free online service which captures market share of search engines, browsers and operating systems, including mobile.
You can see regional and country browser analysis here.

GSMA Releases Mobile Broadband Stats

The GSM Association (GSMA) says that the latest statistics from its Wireless Intelligence research arm demonstrate how HSPA and HSPA+ are fast becoming the de-facto global Mobile Broadband technologies and leading the way in bridging the digital divide.  
There are currently 245 commercially available HSPA networks, supporting more than 125 million live connections in 107 countries. A further 65 HSPA networks are either being deployed, in trial or planned, with an average of 4 million Mobile Broadband connections being added globally on a monthly basis. 
The global deployment of HSPA technology continues to thrive, says the GSMA. There are more than 1,380 HSPA-enabled devices, offered by 134 different suppliers worldwide, creating an ecosystem that is driving economies of scale that will see cost savings passed on to operators and ultimately the subscribers themselves.   
“HSPA Mobile Broadband roll-out is focused on the development of a ubiquitous infrastructure and the proliferation of devices that will connect the world’s population to the Internet,” says the GSMA’s Chief Marketing Officer, Michael O’Hara. “HSPA and HSPA+ have generated strong momentum, which will be sustained through the future proliferation of LTE technology.”   
O’Hara adds that WiMAX is a complimentary technology to HSPA and will play “a niche role”.

Wattpad Report Sheds Light on eBook Usage

ebook community Wattpad has released its June 2009 Global Ebook Metrics Report.  The report covers both country and handset/manufacturer data, based on ebook usage among subscribers of over 450 mobile operators in 160 countries.
The report reveals that Wattpad is the world’s most downloaded mobile ebook application, with 3.1 million downloads, which the company says is at least 60% more than other mobile ebook applications, such as Amazon’s Stanza and Kindle. Java devices are still the most used mobile platform for reading ebooks. 63% of e-book usage comes from Java devices, while 33% comes from the iPhone.
Nokia dominates the top device list – four of the top six handsets are Nokia Series 40 devices. But the iPhone claims top spot. The iPhone also dominates US ebook usage, with 78% of iPhone usage coming from North America. Nokia dominates the rest of the world. Blackberry usage has grown over 400% since the launch of the Blackberry App World in April.
The reports also found that usage typically rise by 10% at weekends by 10%, and that daily usage peaks in the evening at bed time (local times). Blackberry users read the least per day, with an average of 1.6 sessions, while iPhone users have 2.3 sessions and Java phone users 2.6 sessions per day.
You can read the full report here, and you can subscribe to future reports by sending an email to: contact@wattpad.com

Survey Reveals US Attitudes Towards Mobile Payments

When it comes to getting bills, Americans tend to trust their credit card company more than their mobile network. This is one of many findings of a recent survey commissioned by Seattle-based Billing Revolution and conducted by research firm Harris Interactive. The survey was conducted online in the US among 2,029 adults aged 18 and over, of whom 1,883 owned mobile phones. It was intended to measure consumer mobile payments and purchasing preferences.
The survey found that:

• 77% of US adults receive bills from mobile phone and credit card companies, and of these adults, the majority (57%) trust credit card companies more than mobile phone companies when it comes to accurately billing them for a payment
• Older adults are significantly more likely than their younger counterparts to trust credit card companies more than mobile phone companies (65% of those aged 55+ compared to 52% of those aged 18-34)
• 45% of US adults who own a mobile phone (93% of US adults do) think it’s at least somewhat safe to make a purchase through their phone, with 26% saying they think it’s fairly or very safe to do so
• Assuming it was safe to make purchases through mobile phones, 46% of mobile phone owners said they would be willing to make purchases this way
• Of those who would be willing to make purchases through their mobile phone, 58% said they would be willing to buy movie/event tickets, 41% music, 34% games, and 24% mobile video or TV content (24%)
• 43% said they would be willing to buy hotel rooms, and 40% tickets for travel
• On the food and drink front, 59% said they would use their mobile to buy pizza, 42% fast food (42%), and 25% coffee

“There’s clearly a large US population of consumers open to the idea of making purchases via their cell phones,” says Billing Revolution CEO, Andy Kleitsch. “With consumers getting more comfortable navigating the web from mobile phones, mobile commerce is poised for explosive growth, and consumers are very much leading the charge in this direction.”
Founded in 2008, Billing Revolution specialises in alternative payment methods and technologies and expects to process more than $100 million in mobile payment transactions during 2009. The company’s technology currently works across all web-enabled handsets and carriers, and accepts payments in more than 150 currencies worldwide.

Smartphone Users Keen on Mobile Web, says AdMob

Mobile ad network AdMob has released its Mobile Metrics Report for April 2009. The report compares Smartphone market share to mobile web usage, and finds that Smartphones accounted for almost three times more usage than their relative market share in April. The report also compares usage of mobile websites to usage of HTML sites on mobile devices, finding that relative usage of both is highest on Apple and Android devices. 
The emergence of devices such as the iPhone and HTC Dream (G1) that deliver more compelling Internet experiences has generated discussion of which web consumers will use on mobile – mobile websites or HTML sites. The report compares requests in AdMob’s network to Net Applications.com Global Market Share Statistics for April 2009 to determine that iPhone and Android users both over-index in their share of usage on both mobile web and HTML  websites.
While Gartner estimated that global Smartphone sales represented 12% of total device sales in 2008, 35% of AdMob’s worldwide ad requests in April 2009 came from Smartphones. The iPhone OS had 8% of the Smartphone market, but generated 43% of mobile web requests and 65% of HTML usage.
The Android OS share of the Smartphone market was less than 1%, but generated 3% of mobile web requests and 9% of HTML usage. The Symbian OS had 52% of the Smartphone market, but
generated only 36% of mobile web usage and 7% of HTML usage. Usage of mobile websites greatly outpaces usage of HTML sites on Smartphones running the Symbian and RIM Operating Systems. 24% of US requests were made over a wi-fi network. The top five wi-fi devices in terms of usage were the iPhone, iPod touch, Sony PSP, HTC Dream (G1), and the HTC Dash.
The comparison of Smartphone market share to mobile web usage in the report is based on Gartner's 'Handset Sales by Operating System' research from 2008, and ad requests in AdMob’s network of mobile websites and applications in April 2009. The mobile web to HTML web comparison uses data from Net Applications.com Global Market Share Statistics April 2009 to show HTML usage
You can access the full report here.

Mobile Web Usage Growing, says Forrester

Mobile Internet usage in Europe is growing and is poised for mainstream adoption. That’s the conclusion of a Forrester Research survey of more than 14,000 consumers across seven EU countries. 24% of online European (and of UK) consumers now regularly access the Internet from their mobile phones, the report notes, creating new opportunities, but also confusion, for brands unsure about their target audience and their mobile strategy.
“The success of Apple’s iPhone has acted as a marketing catalyst that showcases the potential of the mobile platform,” says Forrester analyst Thomas Husson. “The drivers are now in place for mass-market uptake of mobile Internet. The expansion of Internet brands, smarter phones, and high speed networks are enabling compelling user experiences that, coupled with all-you-can-eat data plans, are unleashing usage.”
According to Forrester, too many brands are rushing into the mobile Internet by simply offering the hot new thing: an iPhone app. But, the analyst says, an app is not a mobile strategy.
“Media companies, retailers, and financial services firms must be aware of the mobile market’s unique character as they integrate their mobile Internet services into a multichannel and multimedia strategy, and revamp their partnerships with telecom stakeholders,” says Husson.
The report, titled: ‘Mobile Internet Creates New Opportunities For Direct To Consumer Strategies’, breaks down mobile Internet usage across France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, and the UK. Sweden and Italy have the highest rate of mobile web adoption, whileFrance has the lowest percentage of subscribers using the mobile web. The report also provides recommendations to consumer product strategists looking to implement an effective mobile Internet strategy.
The report costs $749 (£470).There’s more information, including an excerpt from the report, here.

Apple App Store Takes 12% of Mobile Apps Market

Research from Strategy Analytics shows that the Apple App Store captured a 12% volume share of the mobile applications market in 2008. The finding is part of a report from Strategy Analytics Wireless Media Strategies service: ‘How Apple Changed the Market for Mobile Applications.’
However, the analyst says, the App Store’s value is significantly lower, due to intense competition between developers, which has pushed down application prices.
“The Apple App Store’s favourable revenue share for developers has created a tremendous buzz and fostered innovation,” says Report Author David MacQueen. “This has excited consumers, inspiring an unprecedented volume of downloaded applications. The downside to this popularity is that with so many developers rushing on board, competition has become fierce and the majority of applications are downloaded for free, or at a very low cost.”
Strategy Analytics Vice President David Kerr, notes that other handset manufacturers have reacted to Apple’s success by launching their own stores, but adds that in the past, it has been the carriers which dominated application distribution.
“Carriers are now changing tactics, hoping to re-attract developers - leading to a rapidly changing environment where each company category has its own strengths and weaknesses,” says Kerr. “Apple has won the initial skirmishes but the war is far from over.”

SMS Campaign Delivers Impressive Results

Mobilize, the company behind the award winning M BAR GO® mobile CRM platform, has released the results of a mobile campaign for Approved Food & Drink, the UK's largest online seller of clearance food and drink. 
The campaign was a simple SMS call to action, tied to an online offer, which was sent to 6,000 opted-in Approved Food & Drink customers. According to Mobilizie, it proved very effective. Site visits in the hour immediately after the texts were sent (4pm) were 90% higher than average. Revenue for the day was up by 150% on the previous day. Orders placed in the three hours immediately after the texts were sent out were up by 550% compared to the previous day
“Although this campaign only scratches the surface of what our platform can achieve from a CRM perspective, it shows just how effective the humble SMS can be in persuading consumers to shop,” says Mobilize Managing Director, Stefan Magnusson. “Fortunately, Approved Food's website can accept discount codes, which means we can start building profiles and really leverage the mobile CRM capability of our platform in the future".
Approved Food & Drink Founder and CEO Daniel Cluderay was impressed by the company’s first mobile campaign.
“What would have been a low to average revenue day turned into a very strong revenue day,” he says. “I sold in the order of twice as much as I expected and set against the cost of the campaign it was an outstanding result. Mobilize provide a terrific service which I will definitely use again."
Mobilize operates the SHOP SCAN SAVE mobile savings club, whose mobile coupons can be redeemed securely in over 21,000 convenience outlets in the UK. 

NetFront Claims Mobile Browser Dominance

ACCESS CO, which provides software technologies to the mobile and beyond-PC markets, says that its NetFront Browser is the standard browser shipped on more handset models in the US, and through multi-country operators in the top five European markets (France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain) than any other mobile Internet browser. Based on an analysis of devices offered by top-tier operators and device ownership data from comScore’s MobiLens research in February 2009, there are more mobile phones on the market with ACCESS’s NetFront Browser than any other mobile Internet browser.
Top operators referenced in comScore’s research include AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon in the US, and Orange, Telefonica, T-Mobile and Vodafone in Europe. ACCESS’s NetFront Browser is deployed in 27% of all handset models currently available in the US, representing the highest percentage of any vendor’s mobile browser. In the top five European markets, 30% of all currently available mobile phones are equipped with NetFront Browser. Worldwide deployments of ACCESS’ NetFront technologies surpassed 732 million in January 2009, representing over 1,710 different device models.
According to ACCESS, the NetFront Browser is also continuing to increase its presence in the US and European markets in beyond-PC devices, such as games consoles, set-top boxes, digital cameras, eBook readers and car navigation devices. You can see a complete listing of devices powered by NetFront technologies here.

Handset Margins Shrinking, Report Finds

New research from Wireless Intelligence reveals that the world's largest mobile handset makers are facing severe financial pressures as they continue to invest in their product portfolios during the market slowdown. The analyst estimates that the average operating margin at the top five vendors - Nokia, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Motorola and LG - declined to around 4% in Q1 09, down from an average of 13% a year ago.
The Wireless Intelligence data shows that vendors have been unable to reduce expenditure in core areas such as research and development (R&D) and marketing in order to offset shrinking margins. R&D expenses are estimated to have risen from 10% in Q1 08 to 12% in Q1 09, while marketing costs have risen from 9% to 10% over the same period. Margins in the sector have also been negatively affected by a high level of product inventories, fierce price competition, and a decline in the average Sselling price of devices.
The figures highlight the predicament faced by handset vendors as they continue to invest in markets where demand is slowing and margins are shrinking. Wireless Intelligence says that vendors are looking to cut costs in R&D and marketing during 2009. 
In the first quarter of the year, the top five vendors shipped 191 million devices worldwide, compared to 236 million a year ago, a 19& decline. Many vendors – including market-leader Nokia - are predicting a further 10% decline in shipments during the current calendar year. Shipments for the current quarter are expected to be flat sequentially and down year-on-year. Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Motorola all reported an annual decline in revenues in Q1 09, while only Samsung and LG, the two South Korean vendors, reported positive revenue growth. As a consequence, profits have dropped significantly at most vendors.
The Wireless Intelligence analysis forecasts the following trends in the mobile devices market in 2009:

• Cost savings to be made in R&D as vendors look to streamline their portfolio of devices
• Vendors to focus on Smartphones to generate high-margins and lower-tier devices to generate high volumes and maintain market share. Less focus on devices in the mid-tier segment
• Vendors embracing content/media services, shifting the battle in the handset space from a pure hardware play to a software-centric strategy
• An increase in joint-marketing campaigns with mobile operators and distributors
• The outsourcing of lower-tier devices to Original Design Manufacturers (ODMs) such as HTC, Compal, Foxconn and Asustek

“The current pressures we are seeing in the handset market have been caused mainly by the high level of maturity in developed markets, though the economic downturn has also played a part with regards to unfavourable currency fluctuations,” says Joss Gillet, Senior Analyst at Wireless Intelligence. “Depending on the level of subsidies and how fast the bill-of-materials (BOM) for Smartphones declines, handset vendors will have to carefully monitor price elasticity and device price erosion in 2009. Vendors that do not have a compelling and competitively-priced portfolio of devices ready to ship in time for the crucial last quarter of the year are likely to be in for a rocky ride in 2010.”

Report Studies m-payments in Latin America

Mobile payments service provider Upaid has released its Mobile Payments Report 2009, which assesses the state of the mobile payments industry in Latin America.
Upaid has extensive experience of the m-payments industry in the region, through projects with all the major operators and banks in Brazil, where it enables a cross-border mobile recharge service for a user base of over 50 million consumers. This enables a third party, for example, someone living in the US, to top up the mobile phone credit of someone living in Brazil, so effectively, it's a way for a Brazilian expat living in the US to send money home, without using a credit union.
The report highlights the potential of m-payments in Latin America, a region where mobile subscribers have overtaken their fixed-line counterparts in every country except Cuba. Despite varying levels of development in banking, telecommunications and technology in the region, there is sufficient infrastructure to support payments and remittance by mobile. Meanwhile, regional factors such as Latin America’s history of hyperinflation, it notes, have led to a genuine need for a reliable, quick and accessible personal banking service.
As the largest country and economy in the region, the report points to Brazil as a reliable indicator of what will become successful in Latin America. The rapid growth in access to mobile telecommunications in Brazil has created new opportunities to provide secure, low-cost financial services using the local mobile networks. As a result, the ability to transfer funds safely and securely using mobile phones could revolutionise the way people in Latin America save, spend and transfer their money. It also represents a significant prospective market for mobile operators, financial services, governments, retailers and end users.
Upaid underlines the importance of collaboration from all the players in the market, from handset manufacturers to network operators and banks, if m-payments are to become ubiquitous in Latin America. Without this, it says, the challenges for the consumer will continue to make this process less straightforward and, therefore, more unlikely to take off in the mass market.
“Our experience has shown us that mobile payments has massive potential in Latin America as, historically, innate distrust in the banking system has encouraged innovation,” says, Upaid CIO, Stephen Gibb. “This means the traditional barriers we see in developed markets, where operators and banks struggle to agree on ownership of the customer, do not exist to the same extent. We also found from our own independent research that there is clear demand for this service from consumers. By bringing these findings together with our expertise in the region, as well the latest industry figures, we have produced an authoritative resource on the mobile payments market in Latin America.”
You can download the report free of charge here.

Focus on Indonesia

Hemant Kumar, Assistant Manager, Online Marketing and Advertising Sales at mobile ad network Mkhoj, throws the spotlight on Indonesia, which is fast becoming one of the world's largest mobile markets

Indonesia has been in the mobile advertising limelight in the recent past. The wireless user base in Indonesia recently crossed the 100 million subscriber mark, and is expected to grow to 146 million by the end of 2010. With this growth, Indonesia is set to become the third largest mobile market, after China and India. Insights into the region show that the demographics of Indonesia is a key contributor to mobile’s strong uptake in the region. Young people below the age of 27, who form over 72% of the population, have shown a high affinity towards the web, and are driving the bulk of the mobile web usage in this country.
Accelerating the growing success of mobile web is the poor quality of fixed line infrastructure, which is either unreliable, or completely non-existent in places. The mobile Internet forms the obvious surrogate, providing stable connectivity, at extremely cost effective prices. The operators in Indonesia are getting more competitive by the day and the data prices are dropping. In Indonesia, an average user browses 358 pages per month, well above the global average. Understandably, a vast majority of people are choosing mobile phones as the obvious choice for connectivity, and in many cases the mobile is exposing users to the internet for the first time.

Preferred medium
Indonesia ranks second in terms of Mkhoj’s network traffic, and has seen growth of 62% in the last quarter alone. In Indonesia, communities and content downloads form the top two traffic segments. It is only natural that mobile forms a preferred advertising medium in economies like Indonesia. The key is in educating our advertiser partners to the nuances of the region. Big players in the mobile industry have already taken to mobile marketing in this region. Indonesia has seen several successful campaigns, with various advertisers and publishers, who have enjoyed high ROI and monetization with the help of ad networks like us.
These days, mobile advertising is synonymous with emerging markets like Indonesia. The Indonesian government is also aiding this growth by giving incentives to foreign investors. The government is shifting its focus from larger cities to suburban areas and small towns by earmarking a part of the yearly revenues for the growth of rural areas. The sheer number of users, and the revenues being generated, confirm that mobile advertising is set to shift gears and zoom forward.

Graffiti a Hit with itsmy.com Users

Mobile social network itsmy.com has revealed that its Mobile Social Browser Game, ‘Graffiti’,  which allows users to seek out their friends and then leave their names – known as ‘tags’ – on their friends’ mobile Internet profile pages.
Graffiti launched in March 2009 in the UK, Italy and the US for the 2.5 million members of itsmy.com’s mobile community, and within eight weeks, users had left more than 1.5 million tags on personal profile pages. The basic version of the game is free, and, the company says, works with every mobile phone browser in the world.
“Mobile social games are a new way of communication for our users, and a new revenue generator for the company,” says itsmy.com CEO, Antonio Vince Staybl. “The various kinds of mobile browser games we launched in the last months clearly show the users’ acceptance of mobile payments, and thus are an excellent alternative to advertising for us, especially in the current economic situation.”
A recent user survey conducted among 1,000 itsmy.com users showed that around 61% of mobile game players already found new friends during a game session, while 95% liked the ideaof staying in touch with old friends by playing a game on their mobile phone.
itsmy.com’s mobile browser game in-house unit plans to launch of up to 50 multiplayer and mini games for mobiles during 2009. You can find itsmy.com on your mobile at: http://m.itsmy.com

UK Ad Spend Worth £28.6m in 2008, says IAB/PwC

After the hype, the reality, and some hard, independently-researched figures. Mobile ad spend in the UK exceeded market expectations in 2008 to reach a total of £28.6 million, according to a study by the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC). 
As mobile advertising becomes increasingly important for operators and advertisers, the study - a UK first - shows that mobile ad spend bucked all market trends, doubling in size on a like-for-like basis in 2008, increasing by 99.2% year on year. Investment in mobile advertising grew at a faster rate than predicted, the study says, as more UK brands invested in the medium due to its exceptional targeting, immediacy and return on investment.
The £28.6 million total breaks down as follows:

• £14.2 million - Mobile display advertising, including banners, text links, tenancies pre/post roll and in-game ads
• £14.4 million - Paid-for search advertising on the mobile Internet

The IAB notes that the figures represents just mobile media spend, and therefore do not include mobile marketing expenditure on SMS, MMS or other mobile advertising/marketing campaign production and delivery costs. This ensures the figures are comparable with all other media.
These first mobile figures correlate strongly with the early days of online advertising.  When the IAB and PwC study was first released in 1998, the Internet advertising market was worth £19.4 million. In 2008, online advertising rose to £3.35 billion, accounting for 19.2% of all advertising spend. 
The IAB has identified six key factors behind mobile advertising’s growth, namely:

• A bigger audience than ever - Mobile Internet usage grew from 8.6 million in December 2007 to over 11 million in Dec 2008, with the number of users on unlimited data plans rising by 109% in 2008.
• Mobile offers a great user experience – The IAB cites the Orange Exposure 2 study, which found that 70% of mobile media users find innovative ad formats actively appealing.  
• Social networking on mobile - People using social networks on their mobile phone grew by 180% in 2008. According to recent research from the IAB, 44% of 16-24 year olds have checked their social network profile via their mobile phone.
• Better, smarter handsets: The 3G iPhone launched and has transformed usage, the IAB notes. iPhone are around seven times more likely than average to browse on their phones daily for news and information. Overall, penetration of 3G handsets increased by 36% in 2008.
• Growth in mobile departments - More media agencies in the UK are appointing dedicated heads of mobile, charged with working full time on the medium to educate teams and promote the channel.
• Industry initiatives - The IAB is working with operators and the key mobile advertising players to educate the marketplace. As knowledge grows, it says, it is becoming much easier to plan and buy successful mobile advertising campaigns.

The IAB officially widened its remit to include mobile Internet advertising in July 2008, when the five main UK networks – 3, O2, Orange, T-Mobile and Vodafone – became members. Since then, it has invested in educating the market about the potential of mobile media, through a programme of events and research initiatives. 
In the coming weeks, the IAB will launch a ‘How To’ guide on briefing, planning and executing campaigns for marketers. It is also currently conducting research into the effectiveness of mobile advertising, with the results due in early June.
“This study is a UK first and means the IAB can accurately prove and track how much marketers are spending on mobile,” says Jon Mew, Head of Mobile at the Internet Advertising Bureau. “The sector is in its infancy, but is considerably bigger than the market was expecting. Thanks to these landmark figures, we know the real value of the mobile advertising industry, and will now be able to chart the medium’s growth with confidence.”
There’s more information on the IAB’s mobile advertising initiatives here.

Mobile Apps Under the Spotlight

Juniper Research has published its report, ‘Mobile Applications & Apps Stores: Business Models, Opportunities & Forecasts 2009-2014’. The study finds that direct and indirect revenues from mobile applications are expected to exceed $25 billion (£16.5 billion) by 2014, with growth fuelled by a raft of store launches targeting both high-end and mass market handsets.
According to the report, while the overwhelming majority of application revenues are currently accrued from one-off downloads, the increasing utilisation of in-app billing to enable incremental revenues from additional mobile content will see value-added services (VAS) providing the dominant revenue stream by 2011. It also notes that many Tier 1 operators will seek to deploy their own app stores in a bid to maintain content revenue share.
The report stresses, however, that in the longer term, the greatest benefits to operators will be derived from data revenues associated with app usage, rather than from the retail price of apps and content, so long as operators reject the walled garden approach. The report also concludes that mobile games will remain the largest category in terms of overall app downloads and revenues, although multimedia and entertainment apps will attract the greatest share of VAS revenues from 2009 onwards.
The report provides an analysis of the opportunity for mobile applications and app stores, forecasting the market for six years and breaking down usage, download volumes and revenues by category of application (mobile game applications, lifestyle and healthcare apps, multimedia & entertainment apps, education & reference, finance & productivity and social networking).
Forecasts for app-billed value added services, including subscriptions, premium events and additional content, reveal a market value well in excess of standalone app downloads. The report also includes an investigation as to how apps are delivered both on-store and across traditional channels.
In addition, the report explains how developers, operators and OS providers have responded to the challenges laid down by Apple’s App Store, including a discussion of how Apple differentiated itself from traditional models of content distribution, monetisation and revenue share.
Questions answered by the report include:

• How will the mass deployment of app stores impact upon existing distribution content channels?
• How will the market for mobile applications develop over the next five years, and to what extent will growth be dependent upon onstore sales?
• What revenue streams will accrue from value-added services enabled by in-app billing?
• What opportunities do app stores offer for players across the mobile value chain?
• Which categories of mobile application will generate the largest revenues?
• How will app stores effect the distribution of entertainment and content revenues within the mobile ecosystem?
• Which players are poised to launch app stores in the short and medium term?

The report costs £1,750 for a single-user PDF or hardback copy; £2,500 for a multi- user licence; or £3,750 for an enterprise-wide licence. There’s more information here.

MMA Case Study: FuturLink/SEAT

The brief
Car manufacturer SEAT wanted to create buzz amongst target consumers to mark the launch of the new SEAT IBIZA CUPRA. The company turned to FuturLink to develop and execute a mobile campaign that directly engaged consumers with the new model.

Objectives
SEAT tasked FuturLink with creating a mobile campaign that created excitement and interest around the launch of its new model of car, at the same time as making the user an active participant in its brand values of design, sportsmanship and quality.

Strategy
FuturLink developed a CUPRA RACE CLUB SEAT application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, which was launched at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2009. Based on an entertainment and communication portal promoting CLUB SEAT, a mobile portal allowing customers to access information about events, news and new brand features of the brand at any time from any place, the application allowed users to experience driving the new SEAT IBIZA CUPRA from their mobile device. Employing a powerful 3D engine, the application enabled the user to access a virtual garage where they could customise the colour of their vehicle and apply exclusive stickers to the design before choosing one of three competition modes:

1. Test Drive – trying out the circuit
2. Time Attack - beating the timer in a frantic race
3. Race Mode - competing against five expert drivers.

After the initial launch in March the contents of the application were updated periodically with new vehicles, circuits, competition modes and other new features so that consumers could use it again and again.The application was available for iPhone and iPod Touch users to download free of charge from the iTunes website from March 16th 2009.

Results
The application achieved 43,670 downloads in three days, with German, Italian and French consumers leading the way. It received glowing reviews on a range of blogs and communities, as well as on iTunes itself.
FuturLink’s application and mobile portal enabled SEAT to position itself as an innovative brand, using a variety of different communication mechanics to establish direct contact with the consumer, taking advantage of the ubiquity of the mobile device.

MMA Viewpoint:
Mobile applications are a rapidly growing area for mobile marketers and provide a great way for brands to establish an interactive relationship with their target consumers that is based on entertainment or utility. Gaming applications have proved to be particularly popular with the arrival of the iPhone App Store and its counterparts which have galvanized the gaming market in Western Europe, according to a recent report by Juniper Research. This development in app stores is likely to lead to further growth in ad-funded or sponsored apps as marketers embrace the fact that consumers want to be in control of the content that goes onto their handsets.

Mobile Broadband Growth to Slow, says Screen Digest

Screen Digest has completed an analysis of the 3G mobile broadband market, conducted by Senior Analyst, Ronan de Renesse. He concludes that although the number of people using mobile networks to connect to the Internet via dongles (USB modems) will continue to rise, the rate of growth is set for a big fall over the next two years. 
Screen Digest notes that there has been a significant uptake in the usage of mobile broadband in the past two years, especially in Europe, where usage grew ten fold from 1 million people in 2006 to 9 million in 2008. Put another way, the mobile broadband market is currently worth more than Mobile TV, mobile games and mobile music combined. This way of accessing the Internet is particularly attractive as an alternative to a fixed connection for students living in private accommodation, people who live in more than one place, and for people who live in areas where fixed-line broadband is not available. 
The growth in take up of mobile broadband has inevitably fuelled a pricing war between the operators. Not only has the number of operators offering mobile broadband increased nine-fold during 2006 and 2007, but they have also become more competitive: 66% offer prepay packages, while 59% have introduced laptop bundles to entice customers to subscribe to their network. In addition, the average subscription price has reduced by a third in the past six months. The result of these competitive strategies has meant that the overall European market has grown to a value of €1.8 billion (£1.6 billion) in 2008, and accounts for 15% of all mobile data revenues.
Because of the nature of mobile broadband, its penetration is highest outside of the big five markets in Europe, where fixed broadband is dominant, so Ireland, Austria, Portugal and Greece had the highest adoption rates in 2008.
Despite its growth, contribution to data revenues and number of subscribers, however, de Renesse expects to see high customer churn rates this year and in 2010. He says:
“The mobile operators have trapped customers into long-term contracts, whilst failing to deliver the unrealistic networks speed that encouraged them to sign up in the first place. The service can be patchy and users become frustrated – many will switch back to fixed broadband if operators don’t act quickly.”
While European growth is set to reach its lowest in 2010 at only 4.7%, the number of connections will rise again in 2011 and 2012 to reach 22.6 million and a total market value of €4.6bn in 2013.
“While this is potentially good news for stand-alone ISPs, upcoming 4G upgrades in 2010 and further price reduction would put the final nail in the coffin for them,” concludes De Renesse.

comScore Reveals Mobile Web Habits

Statistics from comScore reveal that financial services sites, such as those offering banking and stock trading services, are the most popular among European mobile subscribers older than 55, while teenagers are more likely to visit social networking, entertainment and comic sites on their mobile devices. Perhaps not surprisingly, younger users tend to access any Internet content much more frequently than their older counterparts.
The latest numbers from comScore illustrate that older mobile Internet users skew towards practical, utilitarian sites, such as those providing financial services, weather and traffic information. Younger users, on the other hand, use their mobile phones more to access social networking sites and entertainment content. Categories such as Search, Weather and News are universally popular, while social networking is the most popular type of content for all subscribers under 35. For those aged 35 - 44, Search is the most popular activity, while Weather is the top site category among those over 55 years of age.
The comScore stats also reveal the relationship between age, gender and mobile handset ownership. Teenage mobile subscribers age 13 - 17 are more likely to own an LG or Sony Ericsson device, while 18 - 24-year-olds are 80% more likely than the average mobile subscriber to own an iPhone. While BlackBerry and iPhone users skew male, women more commonly own a Samsung or LG device.
“Mobile offers attractive opportunities for advertisers to target audiences based on the type of content consumed and device owned,” says comScore Analyst Alistair Hill. “This targeting ability is extremely valuable for marketers trying to increase their advertising efficiencies in the face of shrinking ad budgets.”

Vodafone Ranked as UK's Most Valuable Brand

Vodafone has emerged as the UK’s most valuable brand in the The fourth annual BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands ranking published today by brand research company Millward Brown Optimor.
The company values the Vodafone brand at $53.7 billion (£36.4 billion), which in addition to making it the UK’s most valuable brand, also makes it the highest-ranked British brand in the listing, 9th place. Google is number one in the ranking for the third year running and is now worth more than $100 billion, followed by Microsoft ($76.2 billion) in second place, and Coca Cola ($67.6 billion), in third.
Tesco and HSBC are the second and third-highest UK brands respectively, with Tesco valued at $22.93 billion and HSBC at $19.07 billion, making them 21st and 30th globally. O2 is the only other mobile firm in the UK top 10, finishing in 4th place (77th globally), with a valuation of $8.6 billion).
The ranking identifies the dollar value of brands, based on the analysis of publicly available financial data, with consumer opinion from BrandZ, the world’s largest brand equity study produced by Millward Brown.
Despite the tough economic environment,t brands are not just retaining but growing their value. The value of the six UK brands in the Top 100 ranking grew by 14% this year, compared to 2 percent growth for the value of all brands in the Top 100  and 11% for the Top10 UK brands.
“In the current environment, where the value of many businesses has fallen, brand has become even more important, because it can help to sustain companies in tough times.” says Millward Brown Optimor CEO, Joanna Seddon. “Those who continue to invest in their brand will be better positioned for business growth as the economic situation starts to improve, than those who have cut spend.” 
You can see the complete BrandZ ranking, including regional and category breakdowns, here. The rankings are also available as a free iPhone app from the iTunes store.

Mobile Messaging Under the Spotlight

Mobile messaging revenues are set for measured growth over the next five years, as market forces take effect. SMS, MMS, mobile email and IM traffic volumes will continue their inexorable rise, but the IP evolution is resulting in disruptive business models, increased competition from the web and commoditisation of established services.
That’s the conclusion of a new report from Juniper Research, ‘Mobile Messaging & IP Evolution: Players, Strategies & Forecasts 2009-2014’. The report finds that the move from per-transaction to per-month billing models incorporating up to unlimited data and messaging bundles will see total P2P (peer to peer) revenues in Western and Eastern Europe post declines, balanced to some extent by a healthy rise in revenues in developing markets, plus growth in ad-funded tariffs. Meanwhile, web-based communities continue to integrate new messaging mediums, which could well impact MNO revenues in the increasingly open mobile web browsing environment.
The report investigates the future for the mobile messaging market, providing forecasting and analysis for both network-based services (SMS, MMS) and IP-based services (Mobile Email & Instant Messaging). The report includes a discussion about the shift in the mobile messaging dynamic, looking at how the social web will drive evolution in the messaging world, in combination with the emerging paradigm brought about by IP-based messaging services.
Key projections include total global revenues forecast by region and by product sector; mobile messaging user numbers; annual volumes of messaging by product, volumes of paid-for messages and total operator-billed revenues; and total mobile messaging advertising revenues.
The report explores a number of business models, such as value-chain disruption, evolution of mobile networks, and the emergence of mobile ad-funded tariffs, plus the various types of value-added services being developed to complement the growing number of messaging services available. It provides answers to the following questions:

• What is the market opportunity for mobile messaging services?
• What are the factors driving market demand and evolution, and where are the various services being adopted?
• How are services delivered and revenues derived?
• Who comprises the value chain & what strategies are they adopting?
• How do next-generation mobile messaging services, convergence and VAS impact current offerings?
• Who uses mobile messaging services, and what are the various use case scenarios?
• What are the enabling technologies and industry/standards developments?

The report costs £1,750 for a single-user licence, £2,500 for a 2-5 user licence; or £3,750 for an enterprise-wide licence. There are more details here. And you can download a free Whitepaper here.

1bn and Counting for Apple's App Store

Apple has confirmed that its App Store has achieved 1 billion downloads, nine months after launch. The 1 billionth app, Bump, created by Bump Technologies, was downloaded by Connor Mulcahey, age 13, of Weston, CT on Friday. As the grand prize winner of Apple’s one billion app countdown contest, Connor will receive a $10,000 iTunes gift card, an iPod touch, a Time Capsule and a MacBook Pro.
The App Store currently has more than 35,000 applications available to consumers in 77 countries. This summer, the iPhone OS 3.0 software update will provide developers with over 1,000 new developer APIs, enabling in-app purchases, peer-to-peer connections, app control of accessories, and push notifications. The iPhone OS 3.0 release will also add over 100 customer features, including cut, copy and paste; ‘Spotlight’ search; landscape keyboard and view for all key iPhone apps; MMS support for the iPhone 3G, where available; and expanded parental controls for apps, TV shows, and movies from the App Store.
 “The revolutionary App Store has been a phenomenal hit with iPhone and iPod touch users around the world, and we’d like to thank our customers and developers for helping us achieve the astonishing milestone of one billion apps downloaded,” says Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Product Marketing, Philip Schiller. “In nine months, the App Store has completely revolutionised the mobile industry and this is only the beginning.”

Airwide Pinpoints App Store Success Factors

Airwide Solutions, which provides next generation mobile messaging and mobile Internet infrastructure, applications and solutions, has revealed the results of an independent survey conducted among mobile operators into the rise of mobile applications and services. The study shows that despite consumer enthusiasm for mobile applications, operators could risk failure if they try to replicate the model pioneered by Apple. The study, which was conducted by the independent analyst house mobilesquared on behalf of Airwide, reveals overwhelming enthusiasm for the App Store concept, with all operators questioned planning to keep a degree of control in their own app store environments.
When asked how much control they thought they could exert over which applications their subscribers could access, operators demonstrated a surprisingly pragmatic and realistic approach. 45% said they would expect to directly control less than 10% of the apps and services launched, while 36% said they would expect to control between 20 and 30%.
Airwide believes that this dynamic could significantly increase the amount of fragmentation that application developers and publishers will need to address if they want to deploy services across multiple operators and on multiple handsets. Until real standards evolve, the company says, operators need a consistent platform to be able to roll-out enhanced applications and services.
Airwide is aiming to address this issue with the launch of its Open Services Framework.This, it says, represents the latest phase of the evolution away from existing monolithic messaging infrastructure, and has been designed to enable operators to use network intelligence on messaging and browsing, location, user profiling, presence, security, micropayments and more, to create and enhance high quality, relevant applications, without disrupting existing infrastructure. It is designed to work across multiple networks and is open, powerful, intelligent and flexible, helping operators cut the amount of time necessary to roll out new and enhanced services by up to 75%. As a result, says Airwide, operators can secure the appropriate share of untapped revenue opportunities, generate more interactive engagement with subscribers, and regain control of the subscriber.
Airwide says it is launching the solution because the rise of the app store model depends on robust and powerful messaging infrastructure, which can efficiently support multiple media types, while remaining flexible enough to enable the rapid rollout of new services that use location, presence, subscriber profiles, the mobile Internet, or any other of a range of operator assets to enhance their functionality.
The Open Services Framework does this through two modules that can be used together or independently. The Service Innovation Module enables the rapid introduction of high-quality service enhancements by exposing value-adding operator assets and capabilities, independent from the delivery infrastructure. The Delivery Optimization Module enables high-reliability, low-latency, secure, handset- and network-optimized delivery of services.
Airwide says this approach is supported by the survey, which also revealed that operators believe that relevance – or the lack thereof – is the most important factor in creating a successful app store, with 55% of operators ranking it the biggest factor in a successful download. By enhancing mobile applications with their unique assets, context and intelligence, while minimizing cost and without disruption to the existing infrastructure, Airwide says its Open Services Framework can help operators can realize significant cost savings, jump-start additional revenue generation, and play a more significant role in mobile data services.
Cost was also cited as a major factor by 18% of respondents, and a number of operators also said that effective marketing is also crucial for the success of the app store model. The marketing campaign by Apple, which focuses on how to discover and download applications to the iPhone, was seen as an example of how good marketing can overcome many of the education issues faced by operators when launching new services.
Clearly education is indeed an important factor which must be addressed, as a separate survey of mobile subscribers conducted by mobilesquared revealed a lack of widespread awareness of the app store concept. Only 24% of respondents knew what an app store was, yet when the benefits of an app store-like experience were explained, over 50% of respondents said they would want to have an app store accessible from their phone. The survey, which asked 1,000 UK mobile subscribers their opinions on the app store concept, shows that there is clear demand from consumers for applications from operators beyond the current triumvirate of games, music and video. However, with less than 25% of UK subscribers currently owning a high-end handset or Smartphone, one of the major challenges faced by operators in the short term will be how they can deliver an app store experience to mass-market handsets.
“The study we have conducted highlights that there is a clear demand from both operators and subscribers for a centralized content and services solution… that will help operators to deliver relevant, high quality applications quickly to the end user,” says Airwide CMO, Jay Seaton. “We’ve designed our Open Services Framework with this need for versatility, speed and quality in mind so that operators can enhance virtually any application with contextual information and support as well as quickly rollout the new mobile applications their subscribers demand without risking disruption to the underlying infrastructure.”

We’ll have an interview with Jay Seaton about the Open Services Framework concept next week. A detailed whitepaper outlining the results of the research in more detail can be requested by emailing Gemma Yates at: airwidepr@miliberty.com

Orange Tops Mobile Gaming League

Figures released by ELSPA (the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association) and Chart-Track reveal that Orange UK was the number one operator in 2008 for mobile gaming, with a market share of 23% for downloads and 25% for revenues. Games such as ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ and ‘Monopoly’ were the most popular among Orange’s 15 million-strong customer base.
Orange says that a key factor in its success were the strong partnerships it forged with top software developers, including Electronic Arts, Gameloft and Glu, as part of its focus on delivering the best quality content. Orange also ensured that games were highly visible and easily accessible on its handsets. Over 30% of Orange’s mobile gaming revenues stemmed from pre-installed demos on its signature devices, such as the  Sony Ericsson W910i and Samsung F480,  which succeeded in drawing customers into the mobile gaming experience.
“We’re delighted with taking the top spot for mobile gaming in 2008 and are already making great strides to make sure we stay there in 2009,” says Neil Holroyd, Head of Games and Gambling at Orange UK. “We’re making more enhancements to our embedded games, and giving our Orange World gaming channel a new look and feel - customers can look forward to a slicker experience and improved graphics.”