Mobile net users growing across Europe

New research from the EIAA shows that 71 million Europeans use the mobile internet in a typical week. and amongst those who do, they spend more time with the mobile web (6.4 hours a week) than they do with either newspapers (4.8 hours a week) or magazines (4.1 hours a week) - (the UK figures show 10 million people using it in a typical week). As you might expect, young people are the heaviest users with 24% of 16-24 year olds using in a typical week.

The mobile behaviours of the young are covered in a good article in the WSJ - which finds that they tend to not use the phone for calls;

Harvard University senior Drew Robb is so attached to his cellphone that he keeps it by his bedside at night and in his front jeans pocket every day. He uses the Apple iPhone to check email, text his friends and play games, pretty much for everything—except phone calls. Calling "really slows you down," says the 22-year-old physics and math major from Honolulu.

We've seen similar behaviours in Japan where it is considered rude to call someone without 'setting up' the call over SMS.

Mobile Banking

In a week that has seen China Mobile spend $5.9bn to buy a stake in leading Chinese bank, the intersection between mobile and banking is worth considering. Nokia have announced the first trial of their mobile money service through a partnership in India and this article looks at the success of mobile transfers in Somalia. In western markets most banks are looking at apps as their mobile play, but few seem to be thinking strategically.

The arms race in mobile advertising continues

Google have announced a patent for location based advertising just days after Apple announced that developers can only use location in iphone apps for beneficial purposes - ie not for targeting ads. And Apple are hiring  a manager to work on supporting next generation mobile advertising.

Its clear that we'll see lots of innovation in mobile advertising in the coming months, but its also clear that what works on one platform may not work on another. Which is why we talk of mobile coagulation; as these platforms evolve we will see 'clotting' of mobile advertising and commerce. To ensure our clients get maximum benefit from the mobile world we have both creative and media skills inhouse so we can develop communications that get the most out of all platforms.

Quarter of US population read news on their mobile

New Pew research shows 33% of all US cellphone users read news on their mobiles. And with the Guardian having sold over 100k apps and a number of news broadcasters (including the BBC and Al Jazeera) launching live news on iphone apps through Livestation, this trend is not limited to the US.

Traffic shaping coming to mobile?

One of the key factors in the mobile opportunity is the wide take up of all you can eat mobile data plans. But the effect of this take up is being seen as the networks struggle to meet demand - dropped calls are getting worse in New York and starting to be noticed in London. Not many people picked up on Eric Schmidts comment in Barcelona that tiered pricing was inevitable and now we see AT&T suggesting the same. Different parts of the industry have different views on the problem and the solution - such as this browser company suggesting the problem is all about apps and the answer is , yes you guessed, browser based content.

Looking at Japan, low price mobile access has been key to the success of mobile - but a crucial difference is that mobile operators there share in the success of mobile commerce and can therefore justify investment in data capacity. We should support the efforts of operators in the west as they struggle to find a way to derive revenue from the new mobile opportunity - whether that be through advertising or other commerce - so they will invest in improving capacity.

But as Morgan Stanley showed, the reach achieved by the UK carriers mobile sites declined from 57% in 2007 to 22% in 2008 so there is a big job to do. We think there are big opportunities for brands to partner with the operators to develop services that take advantage of the operators customer base - for example why doesn't a drinks brand partner with a Vodafone or a Sprint to develop their own location based service? Orange Wednesday has been a hugely successful cooperation between an operator and another industry - whats next?