Mobile Banking, For Many, IS banking

Mobile banking is becoming banking, a PwC survey suggests. Mobile banking will be the norm by 2015 and consumers will be willing to pay up to $15 per month for mobile banking services that offer convenience and value.

Key to the PwC research is its prediction that by 2015 mobile will overtake branch networks as the dominant channel of customer interaction with financial institutions.

Another finding is that the bar is getting raised: to attract Gen Y customers, financial institutions need to improve their digital banking products.

The PwC research is based on a survey of 3,000 customers globally.

“The research reveals that customers are willing to pay for social media notifications, an electronic wallet for loyalty cards and financial tools provided by banks," says PwC. 

Siri Getting Used?

Tell the truth: do you really do anything with Siri other than show people what a cool thing it is?

Maybe I'm hanging around with the wrong people, but I rarely encounter anybody who really uses it, other than to show somebody what it can do.

It's entertain  ing, and provides a "wow" factor, but really, who uses it?

Google Mobile Wallet Facing Headwinds?

Google’s head of consumer payments Vikas Gupta has resigned, AllThingsD reports. 


Separately, former vice president Stephanie Tilenius also has left to work in another position at Google. 


To be sure, it would not be unusual if an entrepreneur whose firm was acquired by Google eventually left to perhaps start another company. 


Nor would it be unusual if an executive gets moved to another post, at a firm as large as Google.

But some will wonder whether the changes mean Google has found it more difficult than originally expected to get traction for its Google Wallet initiative.

And, as part of that, Bedier will be taking on a larger role within Google Wallet, though his title will not be changing.

Gupta joined the Google about 18 months ago after Google acquired Jambool, a virtual goods payment platform where he was a founder and CEO.

Osama Bedier, Google’s VP of Payments appears to be assuming the leadership role for the Google Wallet effort. Nothing is easy where mobile payments and wallet efforts are concerned, it seems.
Nor should we expect a smooth, linear growth pattern. In fact, the normal expectation is for overheated expectations, followed by a period of disillusionment, before actual mass adoption begins.


Mobile payments and mobile wallet expectations likely are approaching a peak of inflated early optimism. The "crash" of expectations surely will follow, before the business actually materializes in robust form.

more Evidence That Texting is Displacing Talking

The latest data from CTIA: The Wireless Association provides more evidence that texting is displacing talking among U.S. consumers.

Since about June 2008 some 60 million additional users have become mobile subscribers.

Since that time, though, the amount of voice traffic has been flat. Usage has shifted dramatically to texting, rather than talking.

That doesn't mean a mobile device is useful "only" as a messaging device. People still do talk.

It's just that a greater percentage of total communications are occurring in text mode.

Latest CTIA data

Online Ads To Beat Print Spend For First Time

Online advertising will will exceed print spending in 2012 for the first time, eMarketer now predicts. 


U.S. online ad spending will grow by 23.3 percent in 2012, eMarketer projects, to $39.5 billion. It expects print advertising to reach $33.8 billion in sales, down from $36 billion in 2011. The shift has been a long time coming, and represents a key watershed for the media business.

Where a rational observer might have argued that online was a subsidiary medium, with print being primary, the crossover point now has been reached. One might now argue that online media are primary, and print is secondary.


At least in part, though, the shift is powered by growing digital revenues for former print publishers. Newspapers in 2012 will continue to be a bright spot. 


Researchers at eMarketer forecast that digital ad revenues for newspapers will grow 11.4 percent to $3.7 billion, after rising 8.3 percent to $3.3 billion last year. 


At the same time, print advertising revenues at newspapers will fall  percent to $19.4 billion in 2012, after dipping 9.3 percent to $20.7 billion last year.  

Google Has a Vested Interest in "Speed"

Though low latency, faster access networks often are seen primarily as an access provider issue, Google has a direct financial interest in the fastest-possible degree of end user Internet access, which would explain Google's experiments with, and support for, faster broadband access, ranging from municipal Wi-Fi to white spaces to fiber to the home.

It is more than a subjective matter of "better end user experience." Faster access, and lower latency, mean users can view more pages and content in a shorter amount of time. For a company that makes its money from advertising, that means a potential increase in the number of impressions.

Now Google appears to be testing ways to reduce page load time by 10 percent to 40 percent by changing the way the Transmission Control Protocol operates.TCP is a key protocol used by all users of the Internet, and all web pages.

Google also appears to be working on methods for speeding up error correction methods, which would likewise speed up end user experience and delivery of pages.

Google also is said to be developing algorithms to improve experience on “noisy mobile networks” by reducing latency.  Google working on faster web experiences.:

Apple, Samsung Earn 81% of All Mobile Phone Profits

Profitability, more than anything else, now is shaping the global smart phone business, one might argue after considering the latest estimate by Strategy Analytics of market share in the global handset business.

Globally, Apple and Samsung have, over the last 12 months, surged to the top of the charts in terms of smart phone sales volume. In the past, the “smart phone” category has not been significant, as all devices were feature phones or basic phones.

As the market begins to shift to a smart phone buyer pattern, differences in firm strategy and execution have lead to a rapid change in market leadership.

Global smart phone shipments grew 54 percent annually to reach a record 155 million units in the fourth quarter of  2011, according to Alex Spektor, Strategy Analytics associate director. That apparently has proven to be a decisive change.

In the past, Nokia has been the global share leader, but Nokia has not been able to translate that prior success into smart phone success, where Apple has changed the game and Samsung apparently has been able to keep pace.

Apple overtook Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone vendor by volume with 24 percent market share. Apple’s global smartphone shipments surged 128 percent annually to 37.0 million units, as distribution of the iPhone family expanded across numerous countries, dozens of operators and multiple price points.”

Apple took the top spot for share on a quarterly basis, but Samsung became the market leader in annual terms for the first time with 20 percent global share during 2011. With global smartphone shipments nearing half a billion units in 2011, Samsung is now well positioned alongside Apple in a two-horse race at the forefront of one of the world’s largest and most valuable consumer electronics markets, Strategy Analytics says.

In contrast, Nokia’s smart phone market share was cut in half from 2011 to 2011, dropping from 33 percent in 2010 to 16 percent in 2011.

That is one reason there has been so much focus on the Nokia partnership with Microsoft, as many would argue the Windows Mobile operating system represents the best shot Nokia will have to avoid collapse.

The other observation of note would be that profitability might now be emerging as the key differentiator, even though design and consumer demand clearly are driving the market overall.

Samsung’s most-recent quarterly earnings also set records. Samsung Electronics Co declared $4.7 billion in quarterly operating profit. jumping 76 percent year over year.

Between them, Apple and Samsung earned fully 81 percent of all profits in the mobile handset business.



Apple in the fourth quarter of 2011 shipped 37 million smart phones worldwide, up 117 percent from 17 million in the second quarter. This represented the strongest sequential quarterly growth among the top-five smart phone brands, according to IHS ISuppli.

“Samsung advanced in 2011 because of its strategy of offering a complete line of smartphone products, spanning a variety of price points, features and operating systems,” says Wayne Lam, IHS senior analyst.

On the other hand, the market share battle between Apple and Samsung reflects the competition between the two leading smartphone operating systems and ecosystems: Apple's iOS and Google's Android, says Lam.

“The relatively small growth of Sony Ericsson and Motorola may indicate that the Android smart phone market is becoming too crowded as the various licensees compete for limited consumer mind share and shelf space,” Lam says.