74% of Smart Phone Owners Use Location Features

Some 74 percent of smart phone owners get real-time location-based information on their phones, a  February 2012 study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project has found. Those inquires typically involve getting directions, recommendations or information related to their current location. 


That has implications for content and app providers, retailers and advertisers and marketers, as the unique feature of a smart phone is its "always with you" and location-aware properties, providing a contextual capability no other device possesses. 

Mobile Banking Adds Value, But Does it Add Revenue?

In Africa, use of mobile phones as a substitute for branch banking has clear upside for banks. In developed markets, the business case is much softer.

In fact, it is possible that mobile banking actually will wind up costing banks money, in a direct sense. The problem is that mobile banking now is becoming one more channel a bank has to support, while incremental revenue opportunities do not exist.

The business model essentially hinges on the "soft" advantages, such as ability to help retain high-value customers, retain parity with other banks in terms of new customer acquisition, and possibly some incremental value in terms of avoided retail branch openings. 

A study by the Federal Reserve System shows that mobile phones are changing the way consumers access financial services. 

Today, 87 percent of the U.S. population has a mobile phone, and according to Nielsen, more than 50 percent of U.S. consumers already are using a smart phone.

Some 21 percent of mobile phone owners have used mobile banking in the past 12 months. 

Some 68 percent of those consumers with Internet access and a bank account have used online banking in the past 12 months, by way of contrast. So some would note that mobile banking already is a channel a third the size of online banking. 

You might argue that online banking has the advantage of allowing users to conduct transactions and get information without creating additional needs for tellers. Mobile banking, though, doesn't necessarily even provide that advantage, since the online channel already is widely used. 

Will TV Double Apple's Share of Household Spending?

Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty argues that average annual U.S. household spending on Apple products is likely to double from $444 in 2011 to $888 in 2015 if the company enters the television television set :market.

Facebook Goes Public

Mobile Data Consumption Will Grow 10 Times, Service Provider Revenue 2 Times, by 2016

Global mobile data traffic will grow from 3.89 trillion megabytes in 2011 to 39.75 trillion megabytes in 2016, amounting to a ten-fold increase, according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

In contrast, global mobile data revenues will grow from $325.8 billion in 2011 to $627.5 billion in 2016, amounting to a two-fold increase.

That is one key reason why service providers are moving away from “unlimited” usage plans. The growth in traffic will far outstrip the growth in revenues.

Mobile phone users will, in 2016, on average consume 6.5 times as much video, over eight times as much music and social media, and nearly 10 times as much games as in 2011 according to Informa Telecoms & Media.

And although the revenue pie will grow, the share earned by mobile operators will shrink. If you exclude simple access and text messaging, the percentage of revenue earned by mobile service providers from content or commerce operations will drop from 56 percent in 2011 to 41 percent in 2016, Informa Telecoms & Media argues.

In 2016, the average mobile user also will be browsing six times as many web pages and downloading 14 times as many megabytes of applications on their handset as in 2011.

Text (SMS) and picture (MMS) messaging traffic will continue to grow, but at a much slower pace than most other mobile data services. On average, mobile users sent 118 text messages and two multimedia messages a month in 2011, compared to the 146 text messages and four multimedia messages  in 2016.

But usage of over the top messaging services, namely instant messaging and email, will see higher growth. Compared to the global monthly average of 31 mobile instant messages sent in 2011, users will be sending 118 in 2016.

The services that put the greatest strain on mobile networks also won’t be the apps and services that bring the most revenue for mobile service providers, Informa says.

“The top three data guzzlers on mobile phones over the next five years will be applications, video streaming and web browsing, in that order of importance,” says Guillermo Escofet, senior analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media. “Yet, the top revenue earners in 2016 will be web browsing first, followed by P2P SMS and applications.”

Video streaming will represent less than one percent of mobile data revenue in 2016, despite representing a third of handset traffic, he argues.

"Social Proof" is Becoming Essential for Sales

There's one very good reason why all brands need to develop their online presence, make use of user product reviews and testimonies. By 2017, Millennials will be the single largest buying demographic in the United States. 


And Millennials require "social proof" when buying. That means they pay attention to what other people say about products. 

Tablet Traffic Will Exceed Smart Phone Traffic in 2013

Beginning with the launch of the iPad just over two years ago, tablets have been transforming the way consumers and brands interact on websites, Adobe says, after analyzing  23 billion visits to the websites of more than 325 brands across North America, Western Europe, and Asia-Pacific.

The share of website visits from tablets grew approximately 10 times faster than the rate of
smartphones within two years of market introduction and grew more than 300 percent in 2011.

Tablet share of website traffic will exceed smartphone traffic by early 2013 and reach 10 percent of total website traffic in early 2014.

Also, although consumers consider the tablet website experience to be nearly as engaging as with PCs, they use PCs to visit websites three times as frequently as tablets. Still, usage will migrate in the direction of tablets.

Perhaps the most shocking prediction is that tablet traffic will surpass smart phone traffic within 12 months. Within one year of the iPad launch, (second quarter of  2010 through first quarter of 2011), tablet visits represented one percent of total website visits, reaching 4.3 percent of total visits just one year later, an increase of 330 percent, Adobe says.

In contrast, within the first two years of the iPhone market entry, smart phones accounted for 0.4 percent of total website visits, taking nearly three years to reach one percent of total visits.

At this faster growth rate, tablet visits will surpass smartphone visits by early 2013 and generate
over 10 percent of website visits in 2014.

On the other hand, consumers use PCs to visit websites much more frequently, even though tablet and PC engagement levels are similar.

In December 2011, there were approximately six times as many PCs as tablets in
North America and Western Europe, but they generated 19 times as many website visits during the first quarter of  2012.

For every brand website visit made with a tablet device, 3.2 visits are made using a PC.

Consumers consider tablets and PCs to be nearly interchangeable for media consumption and for repeated interactions with financial service providers. However, they are less likely to accomplish the purpose of these visits using smartphones. This suggests that consumers
consider tablets to be similar to PCs for visits that are repeated, routine and involve passive consumption of content.


In contrast, PC conversion rates are 30 percent to 60 percent higher than tablet conversion rates for retail and travel websites, suggesting that consumers prefer PCs for visits involving research, comparison of alternatives, and online purchasing.