I found the following statistics interesting because I think Facebook Mobile is becoming one of the key applications bringing mobile commerce into everyday life.

• 71% of iPhone owners use Facebook Mobile
• 37% list it as a Top 3 app
• 18% call it their favorite app

Also of interest is that 83% of respondents said they prefer apps that are $5 or less. This is more ammo that mobile monetization must come from other means than direct app download fees. Apple keeps 30% of AppStore revenue, so there’s already incentive to find other means such as mobile advertising, direct mobile commerce (buying stuff directly from the phone), and transactional fees.

-David

According to a recent Compete Smartphone Intelligence survey, with insights into how consumers are using their iPhones and other “smart” devices, smartphone owners agree on their favorite types of applications; entertainment, games, music, social networking and weather are the most popular across platforms.

The survey data shows that smartphone owners prefer personal and social apps to business applications and are relatively open to targeted ads. iPhone owners, more so than other smartphone users, were more likely to spend money on apps., while 83% of all smartphone users preferred apps $5 or below. Key findings include:

•       73% of Blackberry owners have downloaded 5 or fewer applications; in contrast, 72% of iPhone owners have downloaded 10 or more applications

•       Facebook is hot among iPhone owners: 71% of iPhone users report accessing Facebook from their mobile device, 37% listed Facebook as one of their top three most utilized apps and 18% claim it’s their favorite app.

•       30% of all smartphone owners are either comfortable or very comfortable receiving targeted marketing on their device

•       Despite Twitter’s ever-increasing mobile popularity, 85% of smartphone owners still prefer to access the site from the computer, while 26% of iPhone users tweet from their device, only 15% of Palm owners and 10% of Blackberry devotees report accessing Twitter on the go

•       Of the smartphone owners who do access Twitter via their phones, 41% use the application to keep track of what their friends are doing, 32% use the service to keep up with current events and 19% tweet from their handset to build a fan base or promote their company

•       Nearly half of smartphone owners are receptive to location-based targeted ad offers at restaurants and offers to save and pursue at their leisure, and 45% would use mobile grocery coupons

Danielle Nohe, director of telecommunications and media for Compete, notes that “…  the iPhone has taken an early lead in getting owners to adopt app functionality and make popular applications a part of their daily lives… once users are hooked, they’re very unlikely to give up their device… ”

Facebook is the most heavily trafficked social networking site among smartphone owners, says the report, and iPhone users are twice as likely to use the mobile Facebook app as their Palm counterparts. In fact, iPhone owners are the most active mobile social networkers, with the highest percentage of respondents reporting mobile use of Facebook, MySpace and Twitter and from their mobile devices.

Accounts Holders With Social Networking Websites and Accessed from Smartphone (% of Respondents)
	Social Site
Smartphone Type	Facebook	MySpace	Classmates.com	Twitter	Linkedin
IPhone	71%	22	4	26	5
Blackberry	44	19	3	10	4
Palm	33	17	5	15	1
Total	45	19	4	15	3
Source: Compete, September 2009

Despite Twitter’s ever-increasing mobile popularity, 85% of smartphone owners still prefer to access the site from the computer:

•       26% of iPhone users tweet from their device

•       15% of Palm owners access Twitter on their smartphone

•       10% of Blackberry owners report accessing Twitter on the go

Of the smartphone owners who do access Twitter via their phones:

•       41% use the application to keep track of what their friends are doing

•       32% use the service to keep up with current events

•       19% tweet from their handset to build a fan base or promote their company

Impulse and leisure purchases tend to be offers that make the best candidates for marketers trying to reach networked consumers rather than big, highly considered ones. Nearly half of smartphone owners are receptive to location-based offers at restaurants and offers to save and pursue at their leisure, and 45% would use mobile grocery coupons.

Offers Most Interested in Receiving on Wireless Device (Ranked First or Second out of Five; % of Respondents)
Offer Desired	% of Respondents
Location based restaurant offers	46%
Offers to save or pursue later	46
Grocery coupons	45
Flight, hotel, rental car check-in with bar code	44
Special pricing for local movies	44
Location based promotion (close)	42
Discounts on travel sites	34
Offers synched to personal schedule	29
Source: Compete, September 2009

To learn more about Smartphone Intelligence please visit Compete here.

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(NOTE: This is a reprint of an email I received 9/23/09. I didn’t see it online so I’m reposting here and will refer to in in a subsequent blog. All attributions follow the article. I am not responsible for any of the content of this article. Read at your own risk. )

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Mobile Internet Engagement and Ad Clickthroughs Out of Sync

According to the results of research exploring mobile Internet engagement levels among smartphone owners, as compared to owners of other devices, InsightExpress found that 68% of smartphone users reported feeling positively engaged (enjoyment in activity) while using the mobile Internet, second only to the 70% of users who were positively engaged while on a computer. Alternately, only 47% of feature phone users reported positive mobile site engagement.When mobile Internet users were asked to identify the top three elements that most influence their decision to return to a mobile Internet site, they reported:

• The speed at which the site loads
• The ease of navigation on the site
• The quality of the content on the site itself

Among mobile Internet users, several small but telling differences were revealed when comparing smartphone owners to feature phone owners, says the report:

• Both groups prioritized the speed at which a mobile site loads,
• Smartphone users looked next at the quality of the content, ranking ease of navigation as less important
• Feature phone users found ease of navigation almost as essential as their number one concern, how fast the mobile site loads.

Mobile Web site features that had the least impact on a users decision to make a return visit were the absence of advertising, the ability to personalize, and the number of links, videos or images on the site. Publishers will likely welcome the news that the presence of advertising on a site does not lessen its appeal, concludes the study.

Joy Liuzzo, Director of Marketing and Mobile Research. “Mobile advertising presents a unique opportunity to take advantage of high engagement levels and less clutter on the pages… advertisers enjoy a large share of voice per page since there is often only one advertisement on the page and it takes up more screen space… ”

And, an almost concurrent study by Chitika of mobile vs. non-mobile Internet usage, based on a sample of 93 million impressions, mobile users are approximately half as likely to click on an advertisement as non-mobile users. Non-mobile held an 0.83% clickthrough rate, while mobile as a whole pulled a mere 0.48% – just over half of the average.

It appears, given the numbers, that mobile users are not receptive to advertising. This phenomenon that is not surprising, concludes the report, given the mobile users’ propensity to be searching for quick answers or directions.

Of the five major smartphone operating systems, iPhone ranked the worst for clickthrough rate at 0.30%. iPhone also accounted for the bulk of mobile hits, at 66%. The group which clicked on ads the most is the “Other” group, comprised mainly of BlackBerry users and a small handful of other phone operating systems (including Symbian, Nokia, and HTC).

Mobile Internet Browsing & Clickthroughs
Smartphone Systems	% Hits	Clickthrough Rate (% of browsing, rounded)
iPhone	66%	0.30%
Other	24	0.92
Windows CE	2	0.61
Palm	2	0.89
Android	6	0.45
Total Mobile		0.48
Source: Chatika, September 2009

The clickthrough rates, says the report, are certainly lower than expected, given the industry’s general consensus that mobile users are more likely to click ads. Possibly, concludes the study, because the ads displayed on mobile devices are the same as the ones displayed to non-mobile, rather than comparing standard online advertising with mobile-oriented ads.

However, concludes the report, though “… (though) mobile accidental clicks are more relevant than in non-mobile ad serving, it appears that mobile Internet users are disinterested in advertising at an extremely high rate… ”

To review the Chitika report, please visit here, and to read the InsightExpress release in its entirety, please go here.

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