Can Rival Mobile Operating Systems Beat Android at Low End?

Google’s Android smart phone operating system will have about 62 percent share in 2013, and clearly leads as the operating system for lower cost devices. 

But there are challengers, including those backed by Huawei, ZTE, Samsung, Mozilla and Nokia. But it always is tough to unseat a supplier that has such dominant market share. 

Strategy Analytics notes that the Firefox OS, Mozilla’s mobile effort, will get one percent of all global smart phone shipments in 2013, compared to 67 percent for Android. 

Mobile Service Providers Should Use Pricing to Counter Over the Top Apps

At least for the moment, mobile service providers can and should use pricing as a tool to improve the appeal of operator messaging and discourage the use of competing over-the-top communication services, Strategy Analytics says. 

In some cases, one might say, service providers can price messaging or domestic voice so attractively that the value of using an over the top app to save money simply evaporates. That doesn't address the value of an OTT app when different functionality is the attraction, though.

So over the longer term, Strategy Analytics offers the advice that pricing alone will be insufficient, and additional changes to the user experience will be needed "to keep customers within the operator communication ecosystem." says Nitesh Patel, Strategy Analytics senior analyst. Patel says Rich Communications Suite is needed to add more functionality. 

That's conventional wisdom and generally good advice, one might argue. The issue is whether RCS can become established fast enough that users have not already become accustomed to using third party apps. 

Google Play to Hit 50 Billion Downloads Early in 2013?

Google Play, the app store formerly known as the Android Market, expects to hit the 50 billion downloads milestone early in 2013. In March the company said it had had 13 billion downloads. 

The Play Store now has 675,000 applications and games available, which is within distance of the 700,000 applications Apple claimed earlier this month. Apple does have the edge on media, however, stocking over 26 million songs, 190,000 TV episodes, and over 45,000 films.

Others Will Drive Mobile Payments, Not Telcos

Mobile (including communications, commerce, platforms, and software and applications) comes a close second to cloud computing in its potential to shake up consumer and enterprise markets, a survey of 668 global technology executives, conducted by KPMG, has found. 

As you might suspect, in a specific market, namely mobile payments, respondents believe Internet companies, technology companies, credit card companies, payment specialists and commercial banks are likely to lead the market, ahead of telecom companies. 

That is one illustration of the concern telecom and other access providers have about innovation within the ecosystem, namely that most of the value is being provided by third parties who use access to the Internet as an input, but are not especially dependent in any fundamental way on access providers to get to the potential customers. 

Three key findings highlight the "mobile anytime, everywhere" nature of the coming potential market disruptions.  Smart phones and tablets lead as top tech breakthroughs, followed by cloud and storage.

What is truly transformational is the combination of the mobile Internet connected to the cloud as an enabler of new business models, KPMG says. 



When it comes to their home country, respondents feel that mobile device manufacturers (such as Apple) outrank other types of businesses for tech innovation leadership.

Roughly a third of respondents say that Internet companies are the emerging champions in the fast-developing mobile commerce ecosystem.

These trends are led by the advanced mobile communications markets of Japan and Korea, big and growing mobile bases in China and India, and the fast uptake of next-generation mobile standards around the globe.


More than half of respondents point to the cloud (SaaS, IaaS and PaaS) as the next indispensable consumer technology and the greatest driver of business transformation. Smartphones and tablets lead as top technology breakthroughs that will result in the biggest business transformation for the time being.


Nearly half (44 percent) forecast mobile as the next indispensable consumer technology while more than one-third (36 percent) predict mobile will be the leading game-changer in the enterprise market. Of the four mobile sub-categories, mobile communications leads the pack.

Select geographic markets favor mobile over the cloud as the top change agent. In Israel, for instance, 64 percent believe mobile will lead the next generation of consumer technologies while 58 percent feel the same way about the enterprise market. 

Additionally, in the Europe, Middle East and Africa region (EMEA), 54 percent foresee mobile as the most likely technology to shake up consumer markets in the next three years.

In one more measure of mobile’s impact, smart phones and tablets lead as the next technology breakthrough that will provoke the greatest business transformation four years from now (according to 22 percent of respondents), followed by cloud and storage, at 18 percent.

U.K. Domino's Pizza Gets 18.5% of All E-Sales from Mobile Devices

In its U.K. market, Domino’s Pizza in its most recent quarter saw online sales accounting for 58.4 percent of U.K. delivered sales, compared to the 2011 level of 46.5 percent for tthe 13 week period leading up to Sept. 23, 2012.

Total online sales for the period rose by 39.3 percent to £62.8 million (2011: £44.8m) and have
reached £184.9m for the year to date (2011: £129.9m).

But it is mobile sales that are the most significant number, some would say. In fact, mobile sales were up by 46.9 percent, and now account for 18.5 percent of total online sales. That's a significantly higher percentage than would be expected in the U.S. market, for example.

Does Twitter Have a Role in E-Commerce?

Twitter is looking at ways it might play in the e-commerce business, which might suggest to some how heated the e-commerce space has gotten. Others might say there is a direct relationship between distribution of perishable inventory and real-time offers that Twitter might provide. 

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo says Twitter is looking at ways to “participate” in transactions that take place on the social network.

“It’s particularly interesting in areas where you’ve got things like perishable inventory, like tickets,” Costolo says.

In the past, for example, Google tweeted a promotion code that people could use for tickets to its IO conference, and about 100 tickets sold in a little over 10 minutes. 

“That’s $55,000 with one tweet in 13 minutes,” said Costolo . Separately, the San Diego Chargers tweeted about tickets that were left for a game, and in a little over half an hour they were gone. Those are concrete examples of how Twitter might build a new business based on liquidating high perishable excess inventory. 

People Don't Remember Mobile Ads: Duh!

Smart phone owners don’t really remember the promotions that appear on their devices, a study of U.K. phone owners has found. But that is completely in keeping with most studies of ad recall. Few human beings pay much attention to most ads, ever, in any medium. 

Azullo conducted a survey of 1,014 U.K. smart phone owners and found about 21 percent could recall an ad on their smart phone in the past six months. But look at matters another way, how many people could recall many details of any event with low emotional impact or involvement, at some point in the last half year?

When asked if they could recall brands, products or services promoted by these ads, 53 percent said no, Azullo says.