Mobilisation
Having been told by market researcher Canalys that it was "the defacto standard for smartphone data" yesterday, we were intrigued to see an avalanche of further related research from rival operations today.
IDC revealed that, in the Asia/Pacific region, mobile devices (by which we assume it means handsets), are set to overtake PCs as the medium of choice to engage in social networking, but that operators need to set data tariffs at the right level to encourage end-users.
In another announcement from the Far East, IDC also says that the growth of HSPA technology in the Asia/Pacific region is setting the stage for a boom in LTE 4G technology, due to the far higher bandwidth demands it creates.
Gartner has identified what it thinks will be the top ten consumer mobile applications for 2012, not sure what happened to number seven:
- 1: Money Transfer
- 2: Location-Based Services
- 3: Mobile Search
- 4: Mobile Browsing
- 5: Mobile Health Monitoring
- 6: Mobile Payment
- 8: Mobile Advertising
- 9: Mobile Instant Messaging
- 10: Mobile Music
Lastly, the UK's Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) says ‘mobile' will be the fastest growing advertising medium for the next five years.
Jon Mew, head of mobile for the IAB said: "With the industry putting education at the very top of its agenda and driving growth more than ever this year, mobile advertising is less of a choice for brands, more of a necessity if they want to reach today's consumer. It's extremely encouraging to see that agencies in the UK are adapting to the changing landscape allocating bigger budgets to mobile and hiring more specialists to plan mobile campaigns."
