If you were lucky enough to receive a new phone at Christmas, then you were not alone. A report released by Analytics company Flurry announced that more than 1.2 billion apps were downloaded in the last week of December suggesting that mobile devices were a popular gift for the holiday period.
Flurry, predicts that this will become a regular occurrence going into 2012 as the number of owned mobile devices increases. The single day record for device activations previously from Christmas Day 2010 stood at 2.8 million. This increased by 140% to 6.8 million on Christmas Day 2011 .
The figures show that we are moving to an increased reliance on mobile devices for a range of purposes from television consumption to checking emails or even locating friends. If businesses don’t already have an app, then they should be developing apps going into 2012 if they want to increase customer reach and engagement.
The expected increase of M-Commerce has already indicated how consumers purchasing behaviour is changing and this will no doubt filter through to other aspects of their life including socialising and entertainment. Therefore, I think it is incredibly likely that the current record for single-day application downloads will be broken in the near future.
Do you have a favourite app? Leave a comment below and let us know your thoughts.
1) Social Media Optimisation – As Google prioritises social influence in search, SMO will be a crucial part of marketing strategy.
2) M-Commerce – As mobile use continues to rise; users will increasingly make purchases via mobile phone. Near Field Communication (NFC) and improvements to 3G, Wi-Fi and 4G rollout will also lead to increased mobile commerce
3) Touch interface – a move towards increased touch screen devices will see interfaces being designed with touch in mind, for example Windows 8, BBC Website.
4) Digital Publishing– The impact of increasingly personalised and social digital publishing will becoming evident as more publishers move away from print as the main offering towards digital publishing. The monetisation model will also change with fewer adverts and an increase in subscriptions.
5) Tablet market – the iPad is already facing some competition from other tablet devices such as Kindle Fire and the Nook. With people moving away from the computer, the tablet could grow in popularity.
6) Social Commerce – Social media will have greater influence in purchasing habits, with brands moving towards Facebook stores
7) Social Media in Customer Service- social media will play an increasing part in customer service communications. Retail brand, Oasis has dedicated customer service section on Facebook page. Other brands will adopt similar strategy.
8) Frictionless sharing – The open graph on Facebook will result in Frictionless sharing of music, news and other content, with one click. Whilst increasing brand exposure, it will also likely raise privacy concerns.
9) Television consumption-Increasing changes will be made to the way we consume television content such as second screen consumption and cross platform broadcast strategy
10) HTML5 – web content will increasingly be built with HTML 5 including mobile apps for increased cross operating system access
What do are your digital trend predictions? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Barclays Corporate has announced that mobile commerce (m-commerce) is expected to reach £19.3 billion by 2021. These figures are 15 times higher than current spending of £1.3 billion.
Currently 52% of consumers use a mobile device at one or more stages of the shopping process. This highlights the importance of taking into account that mobile phones play a key part in purchasing behaviour. Retailers should be thinking about making mobile a core part of their strategy in the near future, as an increasing number of consumers reach for their phones when shopping.
The report from Barclays Corporate states that m-commerce is expected to increase by 55 %, whilst online sales are only expected to grow by 8 percent. They have contributed technological improvements to m-commerce growth such as 4G and Near Field Communications.
91% of adults in the UK own a mobile phone and there are 33.1 million 3G mobile subscriptions (Source: Ofcom) so the reach of m-commerce is huge. Unsurprisingly Argos, Tesco, Asda and Next are among the ten most visited websites via mobile. If retailers want to reach their consumers, then having a mobile optimised website is crucial. Even if transactions aren’t possible, mobile can form the research stage of the shopping process and contribute to the final purchase.
The potential of m-commerce has been proven by the online fashion retailer ASOS. They have reported an 800% year-on-year growth in mobile revenues and currently generate £1 million a month in revenue through the mobile site. The ease of use and accessibility of mobile makes it the ideal way to fit in shopping into a busy lifestyle. Retailers who don’t have m-commerce sites could be losing out a large proportion of sales.
M-commerce is set to revolutionise consumer purchasing habits and retailers need to start taking action now. Leave a comment and let us know what you think about m-commerce.
Report via Barclays Corporate
