Mobile Market: Samsung takes over Nokia as world’s top mobile seller

For the first time, Samsung takes over Nokia from the latter’s reign as world leader in mobile sales after hitting a record at $4.4 billion in first quarter profits and a staggering 267% increase in Smartphone sales. The International Data Corporation (IDC), according to Industry Week, has confirmed the speculation via its Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker report with regards to Samsung’s lead against Nokia at a wide margin.

Samsung’s Galaxy Note and Galaxy S II smartphones, accordingly, have had huge contribution to its achievement in mobile sales. For 14 years, Nokia has been dubbed as the world’s top seller but the company was not able to capture its market share after it posted $1.2 billion loss in the last quarter.

From a total of 93.8 million mobile devices shipped last quarter, Samsung is reported to have claimed 23.5% market share against Nokia’s 82.7 shipped units (equivalent to 20.8% market share). Meanwhile, with Nokia’s 14-year record as world leader in mobile sales, the company is convinced, despite its loss, to regain its reign through the rest of the year.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

With an Inherently Local Ad Base, Publishers Can Take the Mobile Lead

With mobile advertising experiencing 10-20% growth year-over-year, focus can be the big challenge for most people involved in the mobile space. With expansion is going to come diversification, as increasingly niche long-tail approaches will add depth to a field that till now has been in its infancy. Mobile advertising is currently largely national or online brands and products—especially with the explosion of ads in games advertising for other games. Local advertising makes up only a small percentage of mobile ad buys, and there’s little sense in this. Yet it’s not going to be local businesses themselves that correct this imbalance—it’s traditional local media publishers who are going to need to lead the local-mobile charge.

Singapore best market for digital media

Even though digital ad spend accounts for only 8 percent of the total advertising expenditure in Singapore, but the growth is steady and the digital ad market is expected to cross the S$100 million mark very soon. According to the Singapore Online Advertising Revenue Report released by The Interactive Advertising Bureau Southeast Asia (IAB SE Asia) Singapore Chapter, the digital ad spend for the period January to June 2011 is S$60.31 million.

Mobile to Account for 25% of Paid-Search Clicks by End of 2012

Mobile is rising faster than anyone anticipated and that’s good news for all kinds of marketers. The recently released “State of Mobile Search Advertising in the US” report by Marin, shows the click growth over the past year. If mobile continues on this path, Marin estimates that mobile will account for 25% of all paid-search clicks on Google by the end of this year. Most of the reason for the growth is the corresponding growth in smart phone ownership. It’s estimated that when you combine Android and iOS, there will be one billion phones in play sometime before the summer of 2013.

Global Marketers Optimistic About Budget Growth

As with previous months, digital (excluding mobile) and mobile channels continued to attract global spend in March, with index scores of 78.9 and 71.2, respectively. The press again experienced the largest reduction in expenditure, with a score of 36.1, although that was an increase from 33.5 last month. Radio also improved slightly from 39.6 to 42.3, though remained well below the threshold for rising expenditure. TV and out-of-home hovered around the neutral mark, at 48.8 and 48, respectively.

Post-PC digital marketing will lead the way for innovation: Digitas exec

NEW YORK – With a new age of educated and savvy consumers, digital marketing needs to be designed with a post-PC mindset, according to a Digitas executive at the 4th annual Mobile Marketing Day 2012 conference. During the “Digitas: The Agency’s View on Mobile Marketing” closing keynote session, an executive from the agency spoke about how mobile is the next breakout channel for digital advertising. The session also gave attendees examples of how some of Digitas’ clients are approaching campaigns from a mobile-first perspective.

Weather Channel: Cross-channel advertising is key to reaching consumers

NEW YORK – With the long string of mobile devices and platforms available to marketers, advertisers need to develop campaigns that combine multiple platforms, per an exec from The Weather Channel at the 4th annual Mobile Marketing Day 2012 conference. “The Weather Channel: How the Media Brand is Crafting Mobile Advertising Campaigns for Advertisers” session gave attendees an overlook of how mobile is playing a large role for the publisher. The session also revealed a couple upcoming mobile efforts from The Weather Channel.

Canada Hits Smartphone User Milestone

Smartphone users to pass 10 million in 2012 as penetration rate moves closer to 50%. Smartphones have irreversibly changed people’s mobile habits and how marketers interact with them. eMarketer expects that smartphones will continue to grow in popularity worldwide, and Canada, which will pass 10 million smartphone users this year, is no exception. In March 2012, eMarketer forecast that Canada will rival the US in smartphone users as a percentage of mobile phone users in 2012, at 46% vs. 47.7%, respectively.

JWT strengthens presence in Pakistan

Realizing the growing importance of digital marketing services in Pakistan, JWT has agreed to acquire stake in Converge Technologies in the country. 90 people strong Converge Technologies, provides a wide spectrum of digital, social and mobile marketing services in the country. With this acquisition in place, JWT will be able to further strengthen its dominant position in Pakistan, where it ranks among the largest creative ad agencies.

Europeans Expect Big Brands to Advertise on Outdoor Formats

Advertising in outdoor formats can help enhance a brand’s stature in the eyes of European consumers, according to [pdf] a CBS Outdoor International survey conducted by Kantar Media and released in March 2012. 74% of the more than 9,000 survey respondents hailing from 6 European countries said they expect big brands to be advertising on outdoor formats. The response was even more convincing among the young and technology-enabled: 18-34-year-olds (78%), smartphone or tablet users (80%), and 18-34-year-old device users (83%) were all more likely than the average to say they expect big brands to advertise on outdoor formats.

Internet Users in Mexico Faster to Adopt Mobile Devices

In December 2011, a global study by UM (formerly Universal McCann) titled “The Business of Social: Social Media Tracker 2012,” found that smartphone and tablet penetration rates among active internet users in Mexico stood at 45% and 16%, respectively, outpacing those of the US and Canada.

Digital and Mobile channels continue attracting global marketing spend

The digital and mobile channels are reported to experience growth in terms of marketing spend, according to Warc’s Global Marketing Index (GMI), climbing to scores of 78.79 and 71.2, respectively. The press, on other hand, still acquired an increase to 36.1 from last month’s 33.5, even if experiencing the largest reduction in terms of expenditure. The radio industry improved slightly to 39.6 from 42.3; while TV and out-of-home to 48.8 from 48, respectively.

In global perspective, the report revealed that budget growth among global marketers have increased to 51.5 in March, which passed the threshold score of 50 for the first time since Warc’s tracking via GMI, as compared to February’s 49.3.

The report revealed respondents in the Americas as the most positive in spite of its drop from 62.9 to 59.7; while Asia Pacific climbed from 56 to 57.9, and Europe continued rising from 52 to 55 respectively.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

Making the most of mobile

Mobile is the new billboard. It is a present, local and sleek high definition screen resting comfortably in our bags or back pockets. While some rightly claim that it is the most personally connected device in history, others cite that as many as 70% of us sleep within inches of them. In Australia, where smartphone penetration sits around 50%, there are now more mobile phones in circulation than people.

Mobile adspend soars 157% as FMCG and retail brands follow consumers

Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Procter & Gamble and Unilever are understood to have boosted investment in mobile advertising, in an effort to reach what internet analytics company comScore claims are the 58% of Britons accessing content via apps or the mobile internet each month. According to annual figures from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), UK adspend on mobile media – including search, display and video – surged 157% year on year to a total of £203.2m in 2011.

Mobile Video Viewership Gaining in Australia

According to Nielsen’s February 2012 “Australian Multi-Screen Report,” smartphones and tablets were present in 49% and 10% of households, respectively, in Australia in Q4 2011 Drilling deeper into the data, Nielsen found that time spent watching mobile video grew from 35 minutes in Q1 2011 to 1 hour and 20 minutes in Q4 2011. The company also reported that Australia’s mobile video audience was heavily concentrated among males and in the 18-to-34 age bracket, a stat that may be even more important for marketing decision-makers than average time spent watching mobile video.

Asian Pacific telecom operator switching and routing revenue to grow by 9.7% in 2012

In terms of revenues in Asia-Pacific, the edge router segment is leading the way, reaching $4.2 billion in 2017, while the core router segment will touch $1.6 billion and the IP/Ethernet router segment will reach $1.4 billion. The edge router plays a key role in carrier networks as the control point for delivering subscriber services.

Mobile Internet Uptake on the Rise in France

Browsing the internet remained the most popular advanced content activity among mobile phone owners, with 24% of them doing so in 2011, vs. 15% in 2010 and 13% in 2009. In addition, reading email (19%), downloading applications (17%) and watching TV (8%) all nearly doubled in adoption rates over 2010, according to the report.

Smartphones drive Thai Q4 mobile phone market

For the final three months of 2011, the mobile phone market in Thailand grows 6 percent quarter-on-quarter, achieving an “impressive” 20 percent yearly growth, says IDC. In a report Thursday, the research firm noted that smartphones were the “driving force” behind Thailand’s mobile phone market. Smartphone shipments grew 66 percent sequentially to make up almost one-fourth of the total mobile phone market in the fourth quarter of 2011, it added.

PLDT mobile units boast 65-M subscriber base

THE wireless units of telecom giant Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) now have a combined subscriber base of 65 million, a growth of 1.3 million new users from end-2011 figure of 63.7 million. Of this number 50 million came from Smart Communications Inc., Talk ’N Txt and Connectivity Unlimited Resource Enterprises Inc. (CURE). The remaining 15 million subscribers came from Sun Cellular, the mobile brand of Digital Telecommunications Philippines Inc. (Digitel), which is PLDT’s latest acquisition.

Report: Consumers more likely to engage with mobile ads

Consumers are significantly more likely to click through a search ad on a smartphone or tablet than they would on a desktop computer, said Matt Lawson, VP of marketing and partnerships at Marin Software, a provider of paid search management services. Consequently, Marin Software’s study “State of Mobile Search Advertising in the US 2012” anticipates 25% of Google’s US paid search clicks will come from smartphones and tablets by December 2012. Mobile smart devices constituted only 5% of paid search clicks in January of this year, said Lawson, describing the projected increase of paid search clicks by the end of 2012 as “explosive adoption.”

Retail rises among the top-spending mobile sectors with 12.3% growth

Retail climbs up, for the first time, among the top-spending mobile sectors to account 12.3% share of total spend, compared to 5.5% of last year. The unexpected rise, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), is due to rapid growth in the mcommerce.

The FMCG brands, on other hand, also increased their share of total mobile adspend in 2011 to 14.4%, from 11.8% in 2010, making it the third-biggest spending sector after entertainment and media (23.2%) and telecoms (14.9%).

Both retail and FMCG sectors overtook the finance and automotive which have been leading earlier on their mobile advertising spend.

The value and significance of mobile marketing, according to Unilever’s communications buying manager via mobile marketing magazine, is likely going up as Smartphone penetration in Europe continues rising.

Meanwhile, the director of mobile and operations at the IAB said that improvements in measurement and ad formats over the past year were attracting spend to mobile; and that the interactive rich-media mobile ads has made them more appealing to brands and consumers, and that is really driving FMCG and retail spend.”

The mobile search is reported to attract greatest spend with 66% while display rises to 195% to £59.4m.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

 

 
 

Cannes Launches Another Award Category: Mobile Lions

The number of award categories just keeps on expanding at the Cannes International Festival of Creativity. Come next summer, agencies will have to ponder setting aside funds to enter yet another new awards section: a separate category for mobile creative work. The latest category follows the debut of an effectiveness category and a holding company award at Cannes 2011. “Mobile has been part of the Lions for some years, within other sections such as cyber and film; and a large number of winning campaigns in sections like media, design, direct and outdoor have made significant use of mobile technology,” said Cannes Lions CEO Philip Thomas in a statement. “By carving it out of the other sections, we are simply reflecting the importance of mobile in the media mix.”

Mobile Web Africa 2011 – Driving Africa’s booming mobile market

Now that Africa has been identified as one of the biggest and fastest growing mobile markets, industry leaders and experts gathered in Johannesburg for the five day Mobile Web in Africa 2011 conference to discuss, among other topics, the best way to exploit the booming industry.

Indian mobile handset sales to touch 231mn units in 2012: Gartner

The mobile handset market is expected to show steady growth through 2015 when end user sales will surpass 322mn units. Mobile device sales in India are forecast to reach 231mn units in 2012, an increase of 8.5% over 2011 sales of 213mn units, according to Gartner, Inc. The mobile handset market is expected to show steady growth through 2015 when end user sales will surpass 322mn units.

Print Publishers Cultivate Mobile Presence

85% of US and Canadian print publishers say they currently have mobile content for smartphones, e-readers, or tablet computers, representing a 12% increase from 76% in 2010, according to [download page] a study released in November 2011 by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC). Data from “Going Mobile: How Publishers are Maturing and Monetizing Their Offerings” indicates that newspapers (88%) are the most likely to have mobile initiatives in place, followed by consumer magazines (83%) and business publications (79%).

Mobile Internet ‘on the rise’

MOBILE Internet usage in the Philippines is growing rapidly on the back of the rising popularity of smartphones, tablets and other non-computer Web-enabled devices. Mobile Internet revenues of Smart Communications, Inc. doubled from half a billion last year to P1.1 billion as of September.

China becomes the world’s largest smartphone market

It was to be expected: in the third quarter of 2011, China became the largest smartphone market in the world, ahead of the United States and Europe. China has for a long time been the world’s largest mobile phone market – and what a market! With the 1 billion mobile phone subscriptions mark to soon be broken. The country did take longer to see 3G arrive though (the Chinese government reorganised their telecom market around their three major players

Paramount shifts from branding to conversion-focused mobile strategy

LOS ANGELES – A Paramount Pictures executive that spoke at the Mobile Marketing Forum revealed that his company is moving from using mobile advertising as a branding tool to using the channel to drive actual conversion via ticket sales. Paramount uses mobile advertising in conjunction with other marketing channels for each and every movie premier. The movie studio has been in the mobile marketing space for about 4-plus years now.

Mobile Advertising Space Worth US$32B Dominated By Japan, Asia Pacific And United States

The mobile advertising market is expected to be valued at US$32 billion by the end of 2017. A number of factors are driving growth including the increased number of consumers with mobile phones, the availability of high Internet bandwidth and the increased penetration of smartphone usage. Mobile advertising is expected to expand strongly in Latin American and Asian markets.

Marketers Seek More Resources to Improve Strategies

Almost 1 in 5 marketers say the most important factor to elevating their current marketing strategy is increased resources such as staffing and funding, according to a November 2011 white paper from the e-tailing group sponsored by Bronto. Data from “Surviving the Current Marketing Mania with a Solid 2012 Plan” indicates that this is the top factor to almost 40% more respondents than the second- and third-ranked factors, customer behavior insights/CRM/data, and reporting/analytics, both at 13%. Rounding out the top 5 were SEO, search – paid, local (8%), and segmentation, targeting (8%). Digital strategies such as social (6%), mobile (5%) and email (4%) were relatively less important to the marketers surveyed.

Mobile Search Ad Spend Soars

Efficient Frontier clients currently allocate approximately 6-7% of their total online search advertising budgets to mobile search, representing almost triple the share from just one year ago, according to a November 2011 report from the Macquarie Group. Macquarie insight also predicts an even greater acceleration of this growth in the next year, with mobile phones and tablet search spending potentially accounting for 16-22% of search advertising budgets by the end of 2012.

Asia’s mobile tech-driven healthcare market seen at $7 billion

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Mobile technologies will be increasingly deployed to enable people in Asia to monitor and manage their health, with the market expected to hit $7 billion by 2017, an industry official said. In parts of Europe and the United States, diabetics can now have doctors monitor their blood sugar levels by punching daily readings into their mobile phones and doctors can provide answers to expectant mothers via short message services (SMS).

Cannes: Mobile Lions new category for creative mobile work

The mobile space has gained recognition from the world’s prestigious award-giving body for advertising, the Cannes International Festival of Creativity, as it adds new category that concentrates for mobile creative works.

In a story via Ad Age, it revealed that the “Mobile Lion” will be added in Cannes’ upcoming season of recognizing excellent works in the advertising industry. This new category will reward the best work housed on or activated by a mobile device, app or mobile web.

The criteria for judging is said to focus on creativity, idea, execution, (usability, user experience, craft and design), relevance to the mobile platform and results (level of user engagement and any quantifiable outcomes).

The Mobile Lion will soon be judged by acclaimed mobile advertising experts to be led by Tom Eslinger of Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide.

With such credit that the mobile has acquired as an important media mix, mobile strategies and executions are expected to move towards raising the bar; and that contents and concepts meet the qualifying criteria of a brilliant mobile advertising.

Publishers more confident in the mobile market

The mobile market has gained more confidence from the publishers, according to a survey by the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) and ABC Interactive. The survey  titled Going Mobile: How Publishers Are Maturing and Monetizing Their Offerings disclosed that 59% of respondents had a well-developed plan for the mobile market. ABC also noted 67% who found mobile market important to their strategic future in earning from both ads and subscriptions.

Newspapers ranked first (88%) with mobile initiative taking into place; consumer magazines came at second place (83%); and business publications on third with 79%, according to the audit bureau.

Meanwhile, the study showed that publishers had mixed feelings in terms of charging their consumers from their access to content from multiple platforms – 40% said readers shall be charged as one and get an access to all platforms (web, print, and mobile) while 40% said payment shall be made in every access to additional platform.

 

 

Mobile Market Report: Ericsson to triple its mobile traffic

The changing mobile industry is driven by an increasing number of users, one being felt by Sony Ericsson with strong mobile subscriptions now reaching at 5.8 billion.

In its latest report “Traffic and Market Data”, Ericsson gave a picture analysis of the fast-moving mobile industry where mobile penetration rate reaches at 82%, equivalent to the number of mobile subscribers at almost 5.8 billion. This impressive record, according to the report, is driven swiftly by countries – China and India – where 50 million new users were added during the quarter.

In year 2016, the total mobile traffic is expected to triple with city dwellers’ mobile traffic contributions figured at 60%. Similarly, the behaviors of mobile subscribers are also anticipated to change as time goes by. Some of these behavioral findings in terms of mobile usage, according to report’s authors, disclosed a nearly 40% of Smartphone users who will check the internet before going to bed; driven mostly by demand for mobile video, mobile data traffic is expected to grow by 60% by 2016; mobile broadband subscriptions are expected to rise from 2011′s 900 million to 5 billion. The number of high-traffic Smartphones will grow more than 5 times, generating 12 times the traffic. Tablet subscriptions will also grow 10 times, generating 40 times the traffic.

News Execs: Mobile delivery offers profitable future to news business

Mobile delivery has become an interesting topic during the Associated Press Managing Editors meeting in Denver wherein news executives said that mobile news delivery offers newspapers and other media companies a good opportunity to make money in the digital world.

President and CEO of the Associated Press, Tom Curley, said that media companies have lost revenue opportunities with the Internet but have the chance of changing the curve with mobile. He stated that the AP is having partnerships with dozen of newspapers to bring mobile advertising content to mobile devices, and assured the news execs that the mobile news delivery will be profitable.

Meanwhile, William Dean Singleton, the publisher of the Denver Post and the Salt Lake Tribune and Chairman of Associated Press is confident that the print media remains the most profitable segment in the industry and will continue to survive. Kate Marymont, vice president for news at Gannett Co, said that newspapers should sharpen their focus on what they do best, and outsource cheaply produced ‘commodity information’ such as sports scores and weather.