Tag Archives: mobile news

Asia leads in the world’s mobile web traffic

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The Asian region takes an impressive lead in mobile traffic for two consecutive years with data tripled since 2010. Asia grew by more than 192%, from 6.1% to 17.8%, according to Pingdom’s analyzed data fromStatCounter. Based on said study, the figure outstripped that of North America which recorded 8% and Europe at 5.1% of this year.

Africa, on other hand, came second and a bit closer to Asia, with a 155.6% record over the period (14.5%). The UK was leading in Europe with 10.7% while the US got the chart at 8.6%.

Among Asian countries, India had the highest share of mobile traffic wherein total mobile browsing has acquired 48.9%. The top 10 in the record chart, however, is dominated by African countries, but Brunei and Laos made their record chart at 34.7% and 35.5%, respectively.

In terms of service most users are getting in their handsets in both Asia and Africa, the study revealed that most users in India and China were encumbered with 2G networks, despite IDC’s recent prediction pointing China to lead the worldwide market for smartphone shipments by end of the year, while India to leapfrog the UK in the next four years.

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

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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.

Can Publishers Survive in the Post-PC World?

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Mobile is a tiny market but it’s growing quickly, and with Smartphone proliferation that grows in popularity, advertisers in effect made a shift towards mobile to acquire revenue, said lead industry analyst and media specialist Agata Kaczanowska.

In a compiled data from journalism.org, it revealed that mobile made up advertising revenue from newspaper publishers. In fact, 0.9% of digital ad revenue last year was generated from mobile, a factor that shows newspaper’s primary reliance on the web as source of digital revenue.

The mobile ads constituted 0.1% of the total ad revenue in 2011, which although small, represents nearly 2000% year-to-year increase. Many publishers including the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times have embraced into digital content with print subscriptions as a way to feed news-hungry consumers.

However, in a 2011 report of the Newspaper Association of America, it disclosed the fall of newspaper advertising revenue by 7.3%. Additionally, the recent digital advertising revenue report from NY Times told same story of publisher’s fall by 10.3% year-over-year.

So, what really was going on?

According to industry analyst, Ms. Kaczanowska, most publishers are still experimenting on subscription models and figuring out what works for them.

And as long as consumers are still overwhelmed to reading editorial content in print, it remains a challenge for publishers to find out where to place their bets.

Meanwhile, eMarketer principal analyst, Noah Elkin, said that as more people adopt the mobile devices in getting information over time, the balance may shift to where the balance of revenue switches to digital and mobile.

In terms of monetization, one of the challenges that many publishers are facing is finding a way to separate mobile as a concrete revenue stream compared to digital, but according to Publicis Modem’s media analyst, the success of brands depends upon the success of translating print content into digital and mobile platforms.

Some mobile experts, on other hand, said that content remains a king so publishers must nail down a strong content strategy; and the money will follow. Personalized content, such as location and browsing history into their digital publications, are also to be considered by publishers, plus the incentives among readers in using the product will benefit both publishers and advertisers.

With consumers digesting news on multiple screens, it is imperative that publishers recognize that content is more than just a one-platform experience, according to Yankee Group’s VP on consumer research.

Mobile marks a record on Internet Ad Revenue, Mobile Ads the future

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The 2011 report on Internet Ad Revenue marks the year of mobile with impressive growth, said the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). The research revealed the mobile listed for the first time as a standalone category for good reason. Accordingly, the growth in mobile advertising was the fastest of all IAB’s category, up 149% to $1.6 billion in year 2011; and recently, it’s accounting to 5% of all internet ad revenue compared to email (1%), sponsorship and rich media (same at 4%), while search is the largest category at 46.5%.

The IAB stressed that due to the proliferation of tablets and Smartphones, the tremendous growth in mobile will continue as said screens become more crucial to marketing mix.

Meanwhile, the PwC US said that by combining some of the best features of the Internet, together with portability and location-based technology, mobile advertising allows marketers to deliver in timely, targeted, relevant, and local advertisements never been possible before. Hence, it is expected that strong growth continues coming with mobile advertising.

In a separate report by Jana, the mobile ads in some emerging markets are seen to be the future. The report has revealed an impressive penetration of mobile ads in four emerging markets, like China, India, Indonesia, and Brazil taking the leads to make up two-fifths of the global GDP; while China is viewed to shape a billion dollar mobile advertising market in the next four years.

According to the report, the world has 5.3 billion mobile subscribers, which means 77% of the world’s population uses phone. The majority of those users — 3.8 billion or 73% of the group — live in emerging economies. Yet mobile advertising dollars spent around the world do not begin to compete with traditional platforms or Internet ads.

Robust mobile ad spend in Spain, local mobile ad revenues up in the US

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The mobile ad spending in Spain is projected to break the €100 million ($138.8 million) barrier in 2012 after a climb to 67.4% in 2011 to €63.6 million ($88.3 million); and it maintains the levels of growth till year 2013, according to March 2012 report by MMA Spain and Accenture.

Accordingly, the telecom and internet industry in Spain is tied to mobile and has developed the most sophisticated mobile marketing plans to propelling the said market. The Mobile World Congress, in which Spain is a host country yearly, is another advantageous factor viewed to has contributed marketers’ taking of advantage to mobile’s ubiquity in the region.

Meanwhile, in the US market, a report revealed growth to $5.01 billion in 2016 in the region’s mobile local revenues from $784 million of last year. The report covers the local segment of overall U.S. mobile ad revenues, which include search, display, SMS, and video ads.

Search is reported the fastest and biggest driver of overall growth in mobile advertising in the region. One factor viewed is due to mobile web growth where search is central, as opposed to apps. Another factor seen leading to growth in search, as compared to other formats, is directly related to mobile user’s behavior due to pull based intent-driven nature.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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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.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Mobile Marketing Association Forum New York, Announced for June 11-13, 2012

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) today opened registration for The MMA Forum New York: The Mobile Experience, the premier North American Forum event of 2012. Held June 11-13 at The Roosevelt Hotel, the event is a convenient opportunity for journalists, analysts and bloggers to learn from and network with leaders from across the mobile ecosystem, including:

Hotel Industry Poised for 2012 Growth

58% of global hotel accommodation owners and managers worldwide believe their business will be either a lot more profitable (13%) or a little more profitable (45%) this year, according to [pdf] results from a TripAdvisor survey released in February 2012. Data from the TripAdvisor “2012 Industry Index” indicates that 47% of global hotel accommodation owners and managers worldwide, and 61% in the US, plan to offer a program using mobile devices (such as mobile applications, special offers, and booking on mobile devices) this year.

Global mobile penetration reaches 85pc

Global mobile penetration reached 85 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2011 and mobile subscriptions totaled around 6 billion, said an Ericsson report. Though there are now around 6 billion mobile subscriptions, this figure equates to around 4.1 billion subscribers, since many subscribers have several subscriptions, said an interim update to the Traffic and Market Data Report published in November 2011 by Ericsson.

Mobile Ad Spending in Italy May Pass $1 Billion in 2015

According to a November 2011 release from UK research and go-to-market agency FirstPartner, mobile ad spending in Italy will more than double in 2012 to €261.7 million ($363.5 million), up from €125.5 million ($174.3 million) in 2011. Total mobile ad spending is expected to hit €904.3 million ($1.26 billion) in 2015.

Mobilizing The Masses: In Asia, Wireless Grows Up

Mobile advertising grows up as marketing spend multiplies. Although smartphone penetration is growing in Asia, mobile advertising still lags behind TV advertising. While this won’t change, I do expect brands and agencies to double down on their spend in mobile this year. As marketers see smartphone penetration growing broadly enough to deliver scale for campaigns, they will see that mobile provides the reach necessary to increase ROI.

Smartphone Sales Up 47% in Q4 to 149 Million Units

Nokia led the handset market overall by shipping 111.7 million units in the final quarter of 2011, according to Gartner. However, Samsung Mobile narrowed its gap with Nokia by shipping 92.7 million handsets overall, including strong sales of 34 million smartphones. Apple was third in the handset market on the strength of its iPhone alone.

Bridging the consumers and marketers

The future looks bright, too – the estimates indicate that Asia will become the world’s biggest market by 2020, with over 11 billion total connected devices, of which 5.6 billion will be mobile. Asia will have a 47 per cent market share, by far the biggest share of the global market. Compare this to Europe, which will only have 19.1 per cent, while North America has 9.4 per cent of the global market, according to projections

China’s Mobile Internet Industry to See Rapid Growth & Overall Consolidation

Investment pattern: Enterprise investment is active, while direct government investment is rarely seen. In China, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises are the major investors of the mobile Internet industry, while the government only funds a number of state projects initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology. In the first half of 2011 alone, there were as many as 31 disclosed investment deals in mobile Internet, among which 24 had a total disclosed value of $318 million.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Why mobile TV is the linchpin for advertising success

For broadcasters and networks, mobile is becoming a necessary part of their distribution channels to meet the needs of consumers who want television content to be available on multiple platforms. Here lies the opportunity for brand advertisers. With the increase in networks and broadcasters looking to mobile to give users additional bits of content and live streaming, marketers also have an opportunity to target mobile campaigns in new, non-traditional ways. The new slew of mobile initiatives also has implications for cable providers looking to lock consumers into TV services across multiple screens.

Mobile Device Users Highly Connected With Entertainment Ads

Two-thirds of smartphone users and 58% of iPad users have interacted with entertainment ads on their mobile devices, according to [pdf] a survey released in February 2012 by Greystripe. Among the types of ads they engage with, these respondents appear most intrigued by mobile video ads, with 56% of smartphone users and 45% of iPad users citing this type, ahead of images with movie information (29% and 22%, respectively). And of those intrigued by video, a large proportion have watched movie trailers on their device (58% and 67% of smartphone and iPad users, respectively).

Going mobile: Tips to turn an ad into a sale

You have built an eye-catching mobile ad, and your target user has clicked on it. Everything is going according to plan. But what happens next? If the process quickly devolves into something unusable, the customer will move on. It is no secret that there is an exponential growth in mobile shopping. Nearly 73 million mobile users ages 14 and up will browse or research products and services on their phones in 2012, according to a study by eMarketer. Businesses would be wise to consider the entire end-to-end experience from clicking on an ad to completing a sale.

Total Revenues in Germany’s Mobile Multimedia Market to rise to $2.78 billion in 2016

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/e6bc7a/4q_2011_germany_mo) has announced the addition of IE Market Research Corp.’s new report “4Q.2011 Germany Mobile Entertainment Market Forecast, 2008 – 2016: Total Revenues in Germany’s Mobile Multimedia Market to rise to $2.78 billion in 2016″ to their offering. Germany Mobile Entertainment Market Forecast provides a comprehensive forecast of country-specific mobile entertainment usage among consumers. We provide quarterly historical (2008 – 2011) data and annual forecasts (2012 – 2016) for Mobile Music (Total Users, Retail Revenues

Global Telecom Services Market to Reach US$1.8 Trillion by 2015, According to New Report

The world telecom services industry is back on the growth trajectory buoyed by resurgent demand from Asian economies, renewed infrastructure development, and the rising demand for next generation services. The orientation of the industry is shifting from fixed-line to mobile networks, and from conventional voice services to data based and value added services.

Analytics, mobility expected to shape SE Asia firms in 2012

The total expenditure for major Southeast Asia markets is forecasted to hit $49.8 billion in 2012. This translates to a YoY growth of 5 percent. Mobile data will lead the pack with a predicted 11 percent growth. Singapore and Thailand are forecasted to experience the biggest increase in mobile data usage with 16.9 percent and 15.5 percent YoY growth. Across Southeast Asia, fixed data and wireless voice are expected to perform strongly at 9.9 percent and 2.1 percent respectively. On the other hand, IDC expects fixed-line voice to decline by 2.6 percent.

MMA rolls out new services to help marketers standardize mobile advertising

The Mobile Marketing Association has made additions to its mobile advertising packages aimed to make it easier for marketers to buy, sell and create mobile ad campaigns. The additions are part of the second version of the MMA Universal Mobile Ad Package. After researching impressions from the second quarter of 2011, six mobile ad units will be the standard for mobile marketers.

Mobile Advertising Grows More than Expected

Marketers have increasingly been spending more on mobile and with good success. A 2011 IAB study, “Marketer Perspectives on Mobile Advertising, showed 63 percent of marketers in retail, travel, financial services and other industries increased their mobile marketing spend over the past two years, Not only that, 29 percent of those marketers reported an increase of over 50 percent in mobile.

Achieving brand success in the mobile space

In this exclusive feature Fabrizio Caruso, managing director, Asia-Pacific, Out There Media gives a roadmap to businesses on how to get maximum leverage out of their mobile marketing strategies. Rise of the mobile phone. Mobile phone has come a long way since the first generation analogue cellular phones were introduced in the early 80’s. The evolution of first generation cellular networks to GSM networks and advanced mobile 3G technologies, to WIMAX and LTE has paved way for the development of smaller and sleek hand-held devices that we now use.

Globe’s 2011 mobile phone subscribers up 13% to 30M

Mobile phone subscribers of Globe Telecom grew 13 percent to over 30 million in 2011, from 26.5 million a year earlier, its president and CEO Ernest Cu said in a press briefing Monday. “Despite tough competition, our growth momentum is quite strong in total acquisition of subscribers and total revenues, and we sustained it in all market segments,” Cu said. Globe’s subscriber base as of end-2011is less than half of rivals’ combined 65 million subscribers — Smart and Sun Cellular — of Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co. Last year, Globe’s revenues rose 9% to P67.8 billion from the P62 billion a year earlier owing to high service revenues from mobile and broadband.

Global Phone Market Maintains Popularity Despite Low Demand for Feature Phones

The worldwide mobile phone industry grew 6.1% during the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11). The feature phone market declined faster than anticipated and dragged the market growth down to its lowest point in over two years. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 427.4 million units in 4Q11, compared to 402.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010. The 6.1% growth rate was higher than the IDC’s forecast of 4.4% for the quarter, but weaker than the 9.3% growth in 3Q11. “The mobile phone market exhibited unusually low growth last quarter, which shows it is not immune to weaker macroeconomic conditions worldwide,” said Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker.

Total mobile advertising spend in New Zealand on the rise

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The mobile advertising spend in New Zealand is reported at about $632,000 according to Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PwC. The said figure was largely attributed by the increasing number of Smartphone penetration that now accounts 30% of the entire handset usage in the region.

Accordingly, the mobile platform is said to open more positive opportunities in connecting with “on the go” consumers. PwC said New Zealand will follow the international trend of mobile online advertising spend as the population of Smartphone and tablet users continue to grow.

The variety of platforms and technologies, available for businesses to reach out online to their customers, provide companies with strong investment strategies, report said. Display advertising, on other hand, is revealed the biggest change in revenue overtaking the classified ads.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Local Mobile Advertising To Reach $24 Billion In 2016

Local and mobile have always been linked as a natural pairing, but the promise of that alliance has often outstripped actual ad spending. In a keynote presentation at MediaPost’s Mobile Summit Friday, local media guru Gordon Borrell said local mobile advertising was set for steep growth as dollars increasingly flow to mobile devices. In particular, ad budgets earmarked for the desktop Web will shift to mobile in the next five years, propelling U.S. local mobile ad revenue to shoot up from about $2 billion this year to about $24 billion by 2016.

Agencies Say Spot TV Top Ad Medium of Choice in Q4 ‘11

The top medium of choice for clients in Q4 2011 was spot TV (broadcast and cable), reported by 51% of agencies, according to a survey released in January 2012 by STRATA. Digital was second, cited by 31% of agencies, down 9% from Q3, followed by spot radio (8%). Spot TV (broadcast) continues to be an area of interest, with 28% of those surveyed …Agencies reported mobile advertising during Q4 2011 was up 39%, with the iPhone continuing to be the top choice, cited by 83%.

IMMAP appoints new board directors

MANILA, Philippines – The Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) recently appointed its executive officers and board directors for 2012. The induction of IMMAP’s new directors was led by Tourism  Secretary Mon Jimenez. Manny Fernando, president and CEO of Inquirer Group’s subsidiary MyMegamobile, was named as the IMMAP president. IMMAP is now on its sixth year representing the digital marketing industry.

Mobile marketing poised to grow in Indonesia

The growing mobile penetration in Indonesia coupled with remarkable improvements in mobile technology brings a new opportunity for marketers in the country to attract consumer attention. Mobile marketing is the new area for both marketers and solution providers to grow into. To address the potential and challenges of mobile marketing in Indonesia, Pacific Conferences is organising a two day conference on “Mobile Marketing” that will be held on 23 – 24 February.

Retailers See E-Commerce as Main Digital Platform Across Channels

The vast majority (89%) of retailers with comparable store/channel sales growth of over 4% (”winners”) agree that their e-commerce platform will ultimately serve as the central point of all digital activity across channels, and 94% agree that the future of online commerce lies more with cross-channel or merged channel capabilities, according to [download page] a report released in January 2012 by RSR Research. Those with comparable store/channel sales growth of less than 4% (”laggards”) also agree, but to a lesser extent: 62% see their e-commerce platform as ultimately becoming their digital platform across all channels, and 70% agree that the future of online lies more with cross-channel.

National TV Sports Ad Spend Up 6% in ‘11

National TV sports generated $10.9 billion in advertising expenditure last year, representing 6% growth from $10.3 billion the year prior, according to a Nielsen report released in January 2012. Measuring ad spend during sporting events on network and cable TV from Q4 2010 through Q3 2011, Nielsen found that cable has an increasing share of those ad dollars, growing 37.3% year-over-year. The increase in TV ad spend mirrors a similar increase in the amount of live TV sports

Android Surprises with 39% Share of Tablet Shipments in Q4 2011

Apple may be the dominant headline stealer in the realm of tablet computers, but today Android is taking center stage. Based on the latest research from Strategy Analytics, global tablet shipments reached 27 million units in the fourth quarter of 2011. As a result, Android claimed a record 39 percent global share. Pinochio

Worldwide Mobile Phone Market Maintains Its Growth Trajectory in the Fourth Quarter

The worldwide mobile phone market grew 6.1% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2011 (4Q11), as the feature phone market declined faster than anticipated, dragging market growth down to its lowest point in over two years. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, vendors shipped 427.4 million units in 4Q11 compared to 402.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2010. The 6.1% year-over-year growth was higher than IDC’s forecast of 4.4% for the quarter, but weaker than the 9.3% growth in 3Q11.

Majority of Super Bowl Viewers Say TV Ads are Entertainment

73% of Super Bowl viewers say they look at Super Bowl TV commercials as entertainment, by far the leading opinion cited by respondents to an NRF survey conducted by BIGinsight, released in January 2012. The proportion of viewers who say that advertisers should save their money and pass the savings on to them (18.5%) is roughly matched by those who say the ads make them aware of advertiser brands (16.9%). Similarly, although 8.9% complain that the commercials…

Colombia’s mobile internet connections to hit 19 million

Colombia will have 19 million mobile internet connections by 2015, the equivalent of almost one for every two people in the country, reported Colombian weekly Portafolio. The projection is the result of a study released by GSMA, a global organization of mobile phone operators and equipment manufacturers. The report estimates that within three years Latin America will have over 305 million mobile internet connections, mainly laptops, tablet computers and smart phones.