Apple COO: We’re A Mobile Device Company
Building on Google declaring Mobile First in Barcelona last week, the Apple COO came out and declared that Apple now think of themselves as a mobile company. As we’ve stressed before most of the big web players now see mobile as the priority which is why we believe any brand that recognises the importance of digital needs a mobile strategy.
Smartphone sales soar
New data from Gartner shows that smartphone sales rose 41% in the last quarter of 2009, compared to the same period in 2008. Over the whole year 172m smartphones were sold – up 24% on 2008. ( on the basis of these fugures we think there are now more people with smartphones than use Facebook – around 400m – but of course a huge proportion use both.)
It won’t surprise you that Apple and RIM (Blackberry) grew market share nor that Android did especially well in Q4. But we should remember that Nokia still sold 3 times more smartphones than Apple – so for any mobile campaign the strategy should balance reach with richness; making the most of the possibilities of the iphone and android – together with apps where the experience elegantly degrades according to the reduced capability of the device and through replicating the experience in the browser.
Testing Location based advertising
The promise of location based advertising (LBS) has been exciting people for a long time – Admob’s Russell Buckley points out this BBC coverage of his pioneering location based service in 2000 – when LBS was forecast to reach $11bn by 2005…
But the right technology now exists and the challenge is to work out how to make it work for people – things like Foursquare demonstrate both the promise and the opportunity for annoyance. Ski-wear retailer North Face have been early adopters of mobile ( their app – available on iphone and blackberry – has been very succesful) and they are now testing LBS marketing around their stores. We’re great believers that smart mobile marketing is about creating a permission based dialogue and this test seems to be a good start.
Admob data suggests 12.5 million ipad sales
Admob always share interesting data about the mobile market and their latest report doesn’t disappoint. A survey they carried out suggests 91% of iphone users would recommend it to a friend – and that 16% plan to buy an ipad; that sort of customer devotion is invaluable. Other findings show that android owners are just as appsessed at iphone owners – downloading an average of 9 each month.
Mobsessed?
Finally, this article looks at the problem of becoming too attached to your smartphone; including a couple who needed counselling after the husband began surfing his smartphone during sex!
