Tag Archives: wireless industry

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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M-Commerce Sales Shoot Up as More Consumers Buy via Mobile

US m-commerce sales are on a steep upward trajectory, thanks in part to ever-increasing adoption of smartphones and the mobile internet among the US mobile population. eMarketer estimates mobile commerce sales will reach $6.7 billion this year—a tiny fraction of overall retail sales, to be sure, but a 91.4% increase over 2010. Next year, sales will rise another 73.1%, to $11.6 billion.

$100 Smartphone to Shake Up Asia Telco Sector in 2012

Hundred dollar smartphones, which are already beginning to hit some markets in Asia, are likely to shake up the telecom sector in 2012, experts tell CNBC. Claus Mortensen, Principal of Emerging Technologies Research, IDC Asia Pacific, says the $100 or sub-$100 smartphone will drive data revenue for many emerging markets. “Especially in markets like Vietnam and rural parts of China, where disposable incomes are a lot less, moving from buying a similarly-priced voice-centric phone (to) buying a sub-$100 smartphone makes sense,” says Mortensen.

Research and Markets: 4Q.2011 Asia Pacific Handset Market Share and Forecast: Mobile Handset Sales to rise to 887 million in 2013

Asia Pacific Handset Market Share and Forecast is one of the most comprehensive database of its kind in the world, and it covers 28 vendors in China, India, Japan, South Korea, and Rest of Asia Pacific. We provide estimates and forecasts at the country level based on primary field research undertaken in these markets as part of Global Consumer Telecommunications and Global Enterprise Telecommunications Surveys.

Internet phone market heats up

The book peddlers in Beijing are busy seeking underground channels to purchasepirated copies of Steve Jobs’ biography. Selling at 20 yuan ($3.15) a copy, they say it’sprobably the last chance to exploit the memory of Jobs, the founding father of Apple Inc.theworld’s most valuable company in terms of market capitalization.Smartphone marketers are also using the Apple guru’s death as a golden opportunity to createa bigger market share in China – one of the most valued smartphone markets worldwide.

Hungary mobile internet subscription number climbs to 1.946m in October

The number of mobile internet subscriptions in Hungary rose to 1,946,000 in October, while the number of active mobile internet subscriptions – those who used the service at some time during the previous three months – climbed to 1,545,000 from 1,488,000 a month earlier, the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (NMHH) said on Friday. Mobile internet subscribers transferred 1,661,000 gigabytes of data in October, up from 1,466,000 in September.

E-retail all set to grow the fastest, say industry experts

With 100 million Internet users, India is the third largest Internet market after China and US. With already 100 million Internet users, 40 per cent of which do so through mobile phones, e-retail is set to grow the fastest, say industry experts. Speaking at the annual business summit, Confluence 2011 at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Sachin Oswal, COO, Infibeam said, “Even if the e-commerce and especially e-retail players don’t advertise, by sheer word-of-mouth, the vertical has been fastest in India. Moreover, since the country is in the middle of the technology boom, e-retail will increase tremendously in overall Internet usage in India.”

Modest Radio Revenue Growth Forecast

Radio industry over-the-air (OTA) revenues are forecast to grow a moderate 3.5% to $14.7 billion in 2012, according to a report released in November by BIA/Kelsey. Data from “investing in Radio Market Report” indicates that the radio industry has experienced only muted OTA revenue growth in 2011, projected to end the year with $14.2 billion in revenues, up marginally from $14.1 billion in 2010. The 5-year-outlook shows radio’s OTA revenues growing to $16.6 billion by 2015.

Nigeria’s telecom subscribers to hit 152 million in 2016

Nigeria will continue to be Africa’s biggest mobile market by subscriptions, with a forecast of 152.09 million subscriber base by 2016, according to a research by Informa Telecoms and Media, a provider of business intelligence and strategic services to telecom markets. The report said Africa has become the second most connected region in the world in terms of mobile subscription count, up from fourth place last year. It added that there were over 616 million mobile subscriptions in Africa at the end of September,

Multimedia gateways drive mobile internet infrastructure market growth

According to data from the Mobile Internet Infrastructure research service from TeleGeography partner Synergy Research Group, mobile Internet infrastructure revenues exceeded USD1.3 billion in Q3 2011, growing 21 percent since Q3 2010. Strong market growth is visible around the world, but the Asia-Pacific region is closing in on North America as the largest revenue generator. Synergy defines mobile Internet infrastructure as the hardware and software that facilitate the use and operation of Internet applications on mobile networks. While revenue is growing in all major segments of the market, mobile multimedia gateways are the largest segment, accounting for 44 percent of Q3 revenues.

 

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Forecast: Mobile retail marketing spending to reach $15B in 2012

Marketers will spend $15 billion globally on mobile retail campaigns in 2012–a 50 percent increase over 2011–according to a new forecast issued by Juniper Research. The firm adds that mobile retail marketing spend is accelerating faster in North America and Western Europe than it is in the Far East and China.

Global market for mobile video $30bn by 2017

GIA (Global Industry Analysts) says the market for mobile video services is projected to reach $30 billion by 2017, primarily driven by factors such as continued deployment of high-speed mobile networks, increasing availability of sophisticated mobile phones that enable users to download and play videos, introduction of economical data plans by service providers and growing popularity of social networking sites among mobile users. Robust demand from developing markets such as Asia-Pacifica and Latin America also augurs well for the market.

Mobile Shopping Creates a $15bn Opportunity for Retail Marketing and Advertising in 2012

A new report from Juniper Research has found that value of mobile retail marketing will reach $15 billion globally by 2012 as digital adspend moves to mobile and mobile coupons gain acceptance. This is a growth of 50% over 2011. The New Face of Shopping The report found that the smartphone, and more recently the tablet, has increased the capabilities of both the modern shopper and the mobile retail marketer. The marketer now has new marketing channels to attract the mobile shopper, but equally the shopper has more access to competitive product and pricing information before making a purchase.

Android, Samsung top U.S. mobile phone market

Android has widened its lead as the top smartphone OS in the U.S., according to the latest stats from ComScore. For the three months ending September, Google’s mobile platform grabbed 44.8 percent of the market, an increase of almost 5 points from the prior quarter. Apple’s iOS retained second place with a 27.4 percent share of U.S. smartphone owners, up slightly from the previous period.

Mobile ad market growing strong

S. KOREA – With the number of smartphone users in Korea on the rise, the mobile ad market is expanding amid signs of a broader shift in the advertising industry toward portable devices. While conventional ad markets for newspapers, magazines and TVs remain sluggish, smartphone users here are now exposed to 1,000 ads per month, promising new territory for advertisers and media firms.

Survey: Publishers Continue Cross-Media Diversification, Begin to Monetize Mobile

Magazines and newspapers in the U.S. and Canada are becoming more confident in their strategic mobile plans as they diversify their offerings and discover new ways to derive revenue. According to a new survey from the Audit Bureau of Circulations and ABC Interactive, “Going Mobile: How Publishers Are Maturing and Monetizing Their Offerings,” the number of publishers who say they have a well-developed plan for the mobile market rose to 59 percent, up from just 28 percent in 2009. And 67 percent said it was important to their strategic future to earn revenue from both ads and subscriptions.

Google Mobile Ad Sales See $2.5B Run Rate

Google’s mobile ad run-rate is a cool $2.5 billion and growing. But will mobile search revenues continue to double or swell greater? One of Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) big future bets is paying off well in the present, as the search engine’s mobile ad revenues are tracking to bank $2.5 billion in 2011

Mobile Brings New Opportunities for Local Retailers

Ecommerce sales are growing fast, but the vast majority of consumer spending still takes place offline in local stores. A large portion of those sales are influenced by online research, most of which is conducted on the desktop. But increasingly, consumers are taking advantage of the sophisticated capabilities of smartphones to do more of this online research while in a store or on the go.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Sizing the Mobile Payments Market

Mobile payments, though they have yet to take off substantially in North America, are a hot topic, with major companies like Google joining startups in the space and hoping to grab a slice of billions of dollars in potential transactions. Research firms disagree on the current size of the nascent market, but project strong growth in mobile payments and their users.

Fueled by smartphones, daily deals, merchants embrace mobile marketing in a big way

Retailers can no longer rely on the flashing neon sign or the “clown on the corner” to draw in customers who are walking past the storefronts with their heads down looking at their mobile devices. That’s the message from Borrell Associates, which says it is seeing a dramatic shift in how small and mid-size businesses are embracing mobile advertising and mobile promotions. Mobile advertising is fast becoming the go-to choice for local businesses across the U.S., thanks to the fast spreading of social media, smartphones and daily deals and coupons…

Global Location Based Advertising Market to Reach $12.8 Billion by 2017

GIA announces the release of a comprehensive global report on Location Based Advertising (LBA) markets. The global market for Location Based Advertising is projected to reach $12.8 billion by the year 2017. With mobile Internet gaining in popularity and the proportion of smartphone sales increasing, LBA market holds enormous potential. The market is driven by favorable factors including spurt in number of GPS and Wi-Fi enabled phones, increased merchandising and shopping activity among consumers, growing popularity of mobile commerce, and increasing usage of Location based Social Network Services.

Smartphone Users Most Engaged with Ads While Shopping

Different mobile activities lead to different behaviors and engagement levels. With smartphones able to perform a variety of tasks, from communicating to information-seeking to shopping and beyond, consumers are spending more time with them than ever. And marketers have more chances than ever to reach them via mobile.

Smartphone growth changing mobile habits

As more Americans make the upgrade from traditional cellphones to smartphones, mobile habits are changing significantly – a development that should not be lost on businesses and their marketing departments. According to recent figures from research firm comScore, 234 million Americans ages 13 and older used a mobile phone during the three month period ending in July. Of those, 82.2 million owned smartphones, a 10 percent increase over the three month period ending in April.

Consumers Demand Personalized Messaging Across All Verticals

Brands of all stripes are working toward delivering personalized messages to their target audiences. Despite their best efforts, however, consumers say certain industries are not meeting their needs. Service providers, such as cable and utility companies, and regulated companies, such as insurance and finance brands, appear to be behind the curve in terms of delivering personalized digital experiences.

Asia-Pacific leads the world in smartphone use: Google/Ipsos study

ASIA-PACIFIC – It seems then when it comes to mobile phones, and smartphones in particular, there is no market quite like the Asia-Pacific. The region is ahead of the world’s most advanced economies in terms of smartphone and overall mobile phone penetration, a joint study by Google and Ipsos has found. The report, Smartphone Research on Mobile Internet and Market Trends, spanned 30 markets globally and 11 markets in Asia-Pacific. It found that the region as a whole had the highest mobile phone penetration in the world and a willingness to use those phones to shop and play that outstrips other markets.

Mobile internet – driver for mobile

The mobile communications market has been experiencing a global upswing. Smartphones, in particular, are appealing to even more consumers. This year, it is anticipated that around 400 million smartphones will be sold around the world. Above all, in Western industrialized nations, this boom is occurring at the expense of feature phones, which do not offer the diverse range of smartphone functions. These are the latest GfK Retail and Technology findings prepared for IFA 2011, which is taking place in Berlin.

Mobile internet use doubled in two years: ONS

Six million people accessed Internet over mobile phones for the first time. A new study by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has revealed that the number of people connecting to the Internet using a mobile phone has nearly doubled in the past two years. The study showed that there were 17.6 million mobile phone Internet users in 2011, representing 45% of Internet users, compared to 8.5 million users (23% of all users) in 2009.

Asia-Pacific region remains a leader in the world’s mobile market

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Asia-Pacific is ahead of the world’s most advanced economies as far as Smartphone and overall mobile phone penetration, report said.

In a study conducted by Google and Ipsos, the Asia-Pacific region remains leading in the global mobile market. The region is ahead of the world’s most advanced economies in terms of Smartphone and overall mobile phone penetration.

The report (Smartphone Research on Mobile Internet and Market Trends) spanned 30 markets globally in which 11 markets were from Asia-Pacific. In its totality, the region had the highest mobile phone penetration in the world with the willingness to use those phones to shop and play, stripping out other markets.

Report further said that more consumers from Asia-Pacific region find their Smartphone more interesting than TV, compared to US consumers. Four countries surveyed in APAC had a higher Smartphone penetration – Singapore (62%), Australia (37%), Hong Kong (35%), and urban China (35%).

The APAC takes a lead at 78% compared to US region (31%).

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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How to choose a winning mobile strategy

The executives who make the decision on strategy already have first-hand experience and an existing relationship with their phone. They understand the importance of mobile and are constantly reminded by friends and family that its influence is becoming increasingly broad on all levels. Secondly, the numbers are simply impossible to ignore. Businesses are moving their strategies in line with the evolving user behavior and companies of all sizes and sectors are putting mobile at the center of their business strategy.

comScore Reports June 2011 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

The study surveyed more than 30,000 U.S. mobile subscribers and found Samsung to be the top handset manufacturer overall with 25.3 percent market share. Google Android continued to gain ground in the smartphone market reaching 40.1 percent market share in June.

Nokia still top mobile maker in Q2, but Apple grows 142 percent y-o-y

According to the IDC’s worldwide mobile phone tracker, vendors shipped 365.4 million units in 2Q11 compared to 328.4 million units in the second quarter of 2010. The 11.3-percent growth was lower than IDC’s forecast of 13.3 percent for the quarter and was also below the 16.8 percent growth in 1Q11. The feature phone market shrank 4 percent in 2Q11 when compared to 2Q10.

Nielsen Data Points to Continued Android Dominance in the US Smartphone Market

Google’s Android operating system isn’t backing down amid growing competition within the US smartphone market. Android now represents 39 percent of the US smartphone ownership market as of June 2011. That information comes from the latest Nielsen data. The data largely backs up the claims made three weeks ago by Google CEO Larry Page, who says Android-powered devices are being activated to the tune of 550,000 units a day.

8 in 10 Mobile Users Browse Products/Services

About eight in 10 (81%) US smartphone/tablet users browse or look for products and/or services with their mobile devices, according to the July 2011 Prosper Mobile Insights mobile survey. This was slightly more than the 80% who use their mobile devices to locate a store or store hours (more than one answer permitted). The top two choices among the eight offered respondents were about twice as popular as any other response. The next-most-popular mobile activity, researching specific products (56%), was performed by 43% fewer smartphone/tablet users. The only other activity performed by more than half of respondents was receiving text messages with special offers (53%).

Mobile Users Expand Their Search Habits

More than 91 million US consumers will use the internet through a mobile device at least monthly by the end of this year, eMarketer estimates, and research shows that the increase in on-the-go web usage goes hand in hand with more search activity for local content. According to research from comScore and the Local Search Association, 22% of all US mobile owners used search on their phone in January 2011, up from 16% a year earlier.

Apple Tops Nokia, Samsung to Become World’s Top Smartphone Maker

As evidenced by the fact that Apple now has more cash on hand than the US Treasury, Apple’s unprecedented growth continues and it doesn’t appear that even Nokia and Samsung can slow the momentum. According to a new report published Friday by Strategy Analytics, Apple is the new king of the global smartphone world.

Marketing is ‘moving to mobile devices’

Businesses aiming to achieve a complete customer view for marketing have been advised that more advertising spending is moving to mobile devices. Windsor Holden, the principal analyst at Juniper Research, said that while mobile advertising, which covers tablets, smartphones and cells, really took off in 2010, its potential has still yet to be realized.

Nigeria to pioneer mobile marketing in Africa, MMA

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Nigeria is expected to pioneer mobile marketing in Africa, taken from its record of more than 90 million mobile phone users and over 50% penetration.

In the gradual growth of mobile marketing in Nigeria, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is said to align with those in the marketing chain to structure the market, segment mark and move further for the expansion of the media as channel to marketing.

Prior to its plan of establishing a West Africa office, MMA has told African paper, Business Day, that it would brief stakeholders in the region on the benefits of the council and would conduct forum for telecom operators, senior marketing management on how to create revenue generating service to stimulate advertising and marketing income. Roundtable and panel discussions on strategic issues on short codes, regulatory matters, SMS best practices, and other relevant topics on West Africa will also be expected.

The body also organizes basic course that entails the principles of marketing. According to MMA, the course doesn’t turn the participant into an expert but it gives him/her formal understanding of mobile marketing including location marketing, where the marketer can actually confine the message to a geographic zone.

Russia Mobile Trends: Nokia Takes a Lead

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The Nokia Symbian is reportedly taking a lead across the Russian mobile market in spite of its market share’s staggering shrunk to 12% of last year. Apple, according to Yandex report, is at second position despite of iPhone’s market share rise in the past 12 months in as much as Nokia’s fall – by 12%. Android’s popularity, on other hand, is growing even faster than iOS’ – it grew by 14% in 2010.

According to the report, Nokia’s continuous lead despite a fall last year implicated its substantial market share margin in the region. One of the factors seen for such tremendous position of Nokia in the market is a “made in Finland” stamp of quality that resonated and placed the confidence of Russian mobile users in more than a decade.

2010 marked the rise of mobile internet

In a RusTele.com report, year 2010 marked the rapid development of mobile internet in Russia. Along with this is the increasing number of Smartphone users with the demand for mobile internet access in major cities and small towns alike. 3G network coverage is growing, report said, and is predicted to cover all towns with population of 5000 and up by the end of this year. The report has also noted the growing cooperation between mobile operators and social networks in the integration of mobile payments and virtual goods.

Lucrative Market for mobile software development

Russia is one of the most lucrative markets for mobile software developers. Currently, 7% of the Russian population uses smartphone compared to those of the Western Europe at 28%. However, that number is growing and Russia’s smartphones market is said to experience an impressive growth in the upcoming couple of years. Read more

TheTMSway News: CEO Jonathan Ellis shared top 5 mobile marketing tips at Campaign Asia

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The mobile marketing is consistently at the global forefront with several news stories coming out – all talking about this kind of marketing strategy.  But one thing for sure, brand marketers are expecting for a concise and truthful guide in their decision-making:  where and how should they position their mobile marketing approaches?

Jonathan Ellis, CEO of TheTMSway, has spoken recently with Campaign Asia and shared his top five mobile marketing tips. Here’s a piece of it.

Five things you need to know about mobile marketing

By Jonathan Ellis | Mar 11, 2011

Jonathan Ellis, CEO of TheTMSway, shares his top five mobile marketing tips.

Jonathan Ellis, CEO of TheTMSway

1. Clearly identify your audience and understand the mobile statistics about the countries that you target in your campaigns.

In other words before ‘media hype’ lulls you into focusing your marketing or development budget on the Apple platform exclusively, consider this simple fact – 96.5 per cent of mobile users don’t use iPhones. Today the mass market is owned by the likes of Nokia and Samsung. Even when you break down smartphone users, 84 per cent don’t have an Apple handset.

2. There is a myth that only people with smartphones can access the mobile web. This is utter nonsense as many handsets can surf the mobile web. Most handsets able to access the web are feature phones. In 2011, over 85 per cent (global number) of new handsets will be able to access the mobile web. Today, in developed countries, 90 per cent of mobile subscribers have an internet-ready phone.

3. Mobile web or app? Everyone hears about successful apps. While these sound impressive, they don’t mean much without understanding the retention rate (e.g. how many people are still using the app a second time, a week or a month later?) The download stats provide an incomplete and inflated view. High usage numbers always look great but if customers never use the app or abandon it just after a few times, those high download numbers are really part of a high churn rate.

A study by Localytics (January 2010) found that many apps are downloaded, tried once and then discarded. A web app (mobile web site) can be provided at a lower cost for a better result as it can be device or operating system ‘agnostic’. Just make sure that you work with a partner that can provide you with content or an offer that is optimised, localised and personalised for the end user. This will ensure that no potential customer has a bad experience interacting with your brand (e.g “it doesn’t work on my phone”).

4. A standalone medium or an integrated ‘bridge’ to consumers in any media campaign? If you only use mobile via ad display then you will face the ever increasing problem of spam and privacy issues. If you use other channels such as traditional media, social media or promotional material you must use mobile as a ‘x1 click’ way to connect consumers from your media.

5. Does analytics matter? You need to have clear identifiable goals and a means of measuring whether they are achieved in advance of launching any mobile initiative. Analytics are today readily available and thus makes this a highly measurable route to market (e.g. what, why, when, from where and how many?).

Campaign Asia News: http://www.campaignasia.com/Tools/Print.aspx?CIID=249888

The new version of TMSshortcodes.com has released a solution for mobile app developers to deliver their App to different mobile OS consumers with only 1 shortcode

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TheTMSway, a telco-free shortcodes provider, announced today the release of a new version of TMSshortcodes.com with a feature that is custom-made to address the global need for promoting Apps in response to the fragmentation of the device Operation Systems.

The latest feature within TMSshortcodes.com (www.tmsshortcodes.com) gives mobile (and tablets) app developers a solution that provides them access to the different (OS) versions of their APP via the use of just one shortcode.  By using the TMS open platform, a developer can come up with a unique shortcode and link it to the different and specific URLs (x1 per OS) of his new App.

“By way of illustration if we take the famous “Angry bird” App which was developed and deployed onto several platforms (iPhone, iPad, Android and tablets), the company behind the app. could use a shortcode like ‘BIRDS 123” to promote a direct access to the right app. version. Consumers using the code will land directly to the page where they can install the App for their specific devices. And if there is no version yet for their device, we can collect their data to alert them when the version will be available”, says Jonathan Ellis, the CEO of TheTMSway.

“We continue to provide cutting-edge solutions for both the marketing industry and mass consumer market. We are already working on the next step which will be the release of an App version of “TMS search”, the search engine of shortcodes, with personalized features and a vocal search functionality for the shortcodes” says Frederick Saurat, co-founder of TheTMSway.

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About TheTMSway

TheTMSway (www.thetmsway.com) is a company that provides solutions to facilitate and leverage the interaction between brands and consumers especially with regards to traditional media. The company provides a platform, TMS, with “plug and play” solutions to make “traditional media” ad campaigns real time interactive and social using mobile and tablet as an instant bridge to consumers. TMS provides the consumer with a personalized and localized offer, and the brand with a range of real time metrics and data. The TMS platform enables social promotion and social commerce to access offline media.

TheTMSway Weekly Radar on Mobile Marketing and Business

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Alcatel-Lucent helps bridge the gap between mobile operators and advertisers

Mobile providers are well positioned to be enablers to ‘conversational marketing’ for major advertisers and brands, and to generate new profit streams if they automate and standardize language, formats and inventories. Advertisers look to mobile operators—and their relationships with subscribers—as an ideal channel to engage with consumers.

Mobile Internet usage ramping up in Southeast Asia

Internet users in Southeast Asia are shifting away from desktop PCs, according to Tommaso Del Re, head of mobile and business development of Yahoo Southeast Asia. “The next wave of Internet users in the region will be predominantly from mobile devices,” he added.

Where Does Mobile and Social Fit With B2B E-mail?

Where does the social networking world fit in the B2B e-mail marketer’s plan? If you build it, will they come? Is Facebook or Twitter the right fit for your brand? Will your customers find value in your cross-channel engagement efforts? This holiday season shows that cross-channel marketing is a growing part of a standard B2C e-mail-marketing plan. Friends-and-family offers that typically were announced only in e-mail are now a staple of Facebook and Twitter posts. More retailers are sending SMS notices to alert customers when high-demand products are back in stock.

BIA/Kelsey forecasts US mobile advertising to reach $2.9B in 2014

Mobile advertising revenues in the United States will grow from $491 million in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2014, according to BIA/Kelsey’s U.S. Mobile Ad Revenue Forecast. This growth represents a compound annual growth rate of 43 percent. The forecast comprises advertising placed in mobile search, display and SMS. “Key findings are the overall growth in mobile ad spending, and the degree to which that growth will involve location targeted ads,” said Michael Boland, senior analyst and program director of BIA/Kelsey, Santa Clara, CA.

Mobile marketing: Smartphones to account for 27% of sales

Over 342 million smartphones will be sold next year, according to new research, which could be good news for brands using mobile marketing. Brands which use mobile marketing may be buoyed by the news that smartphones are expected to account for over a quarter of all sales in 2011. This is according to Telecoms & Media, which predicts that over 342 million smartphones will be sold next year, New Media Age reports.

2011: The Year of Mobile Breakthroughs for Media

It may be premature to say that mobile has revolutionized the way people consume entertainment and news, but it is certain that mobile has changed the way we communicate. It’s instant, portable, and personalized.Next year will bring some big breakthroughs for traditional media in the mobile world. Already we are starting to see headlines that reveal some of mainstream media’s high-level investments in mobile content and distribution.

Mobile subscriptions in Middle East to cross 300m

Rapid expansion in Iran and Saudi Arabia will power Mideast growth as markets mature. Dubai: Mobile subscriptions in the Middle East are on track to cross the 300-million mark in 2014 after crossing 200 million in third quarter of this year, an industry expert said. “Iran is the single biggest mobile market in terms of subscriptions followed by Saudi Arabia.

Mobile Advertising Expected to Continue on Solid Growth Path

Companies hoping to make their way with mobile advertising should already be on board for the amazing ride. According to a TechCrunch report, this market is growing like gangbusters and shows no signs of stopping. Reports from BIA/Kelsey show that the U.S. mobile advertising revenues are expected to grow from $491 million in 2009 to $2.9 billion in 2014.

Telkom Kenya to Invest 5 Billion Shillings in Network

Nov. 30 (Bloomberg) — Telkom Kenya Ltd., a unit of France Telecom SA, plans to spend as much as 5 billion shillings ($62 million) next year expanding its network in the East African nation, Chief Executive Officer Mickael Ghossein said. The company, based in Nairobi, will increase mobile-phone base stations to 1,100 by the third quarter of 2011, compared with 650 now, Ghossein said in an interview today.

Survey: Gen Y Prefers Mobile Internet

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) – A new survey by browser maker Opera states that Generation Y is more likely to browse the Web on a mobile phone than a desktop or laptop computer. Information Week said 51 percent of respondents between 18-27 years old in the United States use Opera Mini more than a computer. That is low compared to most other countries.

Mobile Advertisers Leverage Social Media

Social media, as a post-click campaign action, represented 26% of the mobile campaign actions in October 2010. The top advertisers on the Millennial network from the finance, automotive, entertainment and retail verticals leveraged the social media platform to drive further brand engagement, as well as lead generation.

P&G reviews mobile marketing devices

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Procter & Gamble is reviewing its multimillion-dollar mobile marketing business, which entails responsibilities for several of the packaged good giant’s brands, according to executives familiar with the matter. Brand in Hand, P&G’s mobile agency for the last several years, is not participating.

‘Brands using Quick Response barcodes’ as mobile marketing tool

The use of Quick Response barcodes as a mobile marketing tool is becoming more popular, one commentator has said. An increasing number of brands are opting to use Quick Response barcodes (QR codes) as a mobile marketing tool, one expert has said. Jonathan Morris, editor of What Mobile, said that using smartphones to scan QR codes is gaining momentum with tech users.