Several Trends Are Emerging As Mobile Matures….
Top of the trends list is the consumer’s growing comfort with consuming news and content on mobile phones, along with exchanging SMS text messages, shopping for products and services, checking email, playing games, conducting mobile banking transactions and searching for retail locations or driving directions
People had been predicting the boom of mobile since 2007. And they had all the reasons to believe that the golden age of mobile was indeed upon us.
On September 18, 2008, Nielsen released a report which indicated, among others, that active mobile Internet users were on the rise in the U.S., with the May 2008 figure almost double that from two years earlier.
The report also indicated that, at the time, 60% of mobile internet users were found to be likely to accept mobile advertising.
The report also pointed out the following:
1. according to CTIA, the wireless industry trade group, there were 254 million US mobile subscribers in the first quarter of 2008.
2. according to Nielsen, 144 million (57%) US mobile subscribers were “data users” in the first quarter of 2008 (“data users” are defined as those subscribers who used their phone for any data use, be that SMS text messaging or accessing the mobile Internet)
3. 95 million or 37 percent of all US mobile subscribers paid for access to the mobile Internet, either as part of a subscription or transactionally
4. 40 million subscribers (15.6 percent in May 2008) were active users of mobile Internet services, using those services at least once on a monthly basis
5. Mobile Internet use accounted for $1.7 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2008 (2007 saw a total of $5 billion in mobile Internet use revenue)
A month after Nielsen released its report, ComScore released its own indicating that the response rate for SMS advertising (particularly those for food, restaurants and fashion) among Europeans was growing.
There are 270 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. Ninety-one percent of them keep their phone within three feet of themselves 24 hours a day, 365 days per week. Thirty-three percent would rather lose their wallet than their phone. And, most tantalizing, there are 29.1 million smartphone users waiting to be engaged with our marketing. Surely, this is a medium that is ready to explode with an influx of ad dollars.
