A Wave of 'Kindle Remorse' As iPad Approaches

Recent ChangeWave survey data shows considerable demand for the forthcoming iPad and, interestingly, a wave of "buyer's remorse" among some of those with other tablets and eReaders. According to the survey of "3,171 consumers, conducted in the aftermath of that Apple announcement (Feb 1-10)," 57% of eReader owners are either uncertain about their purchase or would have bought an iPad.

Here are the data: 

Here's ChangeWave's "bottom line":

While the iPad launch is likely to strengthen overall e-Reader demand, the survey suggests Amazon and its competitors could well find themselves relegated to playing catch-up within just a few quarters if they don't preemptively move quickly to upgrade their own e-Readers.

Taptu: Roughly 1/3 of Sites 'Touch-Friendly'

Building and optimizing a site for the "mobile Web" is a lot more difficult than doing so for the PC. You've got a conventional HTML site, which may not work if it's flash-heavy. Then you've got apps, which publishers and brands may or may not need, and then you should have a "touch-friendly" iPhone-optimized mobile site. 

Most sites are not well designed for the mobile Web and many marketers are simply unaware of how critical this is becoming. Gomez, in a self-serving way, has documented that poor mobile performance can affect sales and have a negative impact on brand impression. 

Mobile browser Taptu now has released a report that analyzes the degree to which sites are set up and optimized for what it calls the "touch Web" -- basically for smartphones with touchscreens. The company examined 113 million sites and found that roughly a third were "touch-friendly." 

By category, here's Taptu's breakdown of the percentages of sites that are touch-friendly:

Taptu defines "higher quality sites" as those "which as used as the basis of our category-level analysis are defined as those with above average quality score for either visual quality or information quality."

The shopping sites are best positioned, with social networks not far behind. Mostly that means Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. Facebook is very well set up for mobile of course, across devices and platforms. What's a bit surprising is how poorly configured the "places, travel & local" category is. Only 9% of "higher quality" sites in the category are optimized for touchscreen smartphones. Yet this is content heavily used by mobile subscribers with data plans. 

Over the next 12 months every major brand and publisher will need to upgrade for smartphone owners. 

Quantcast: Android Growing, iPhone Not

If these Quantcast numbers are correct they provide some additional insight into why Apple may have sued HTC (and Android/Google by proxy): its growth has stalled and Android is accelerating. Partly this is about AT&T exclusivity in the US. It's also about Android flooding the marketing.

Android is growing from a smaller base so its percentage growth is going to be much higher. The decline in iPhone growth reflects that everyone who is likely to move to AT&T to get the iPhone has already moved and people are now opting for "good enough" Android devices that are becoming available from their existing carriers. 

Here are the Quantcast charts:

The figures above actually show a higher iPhone mobile Internet share than other data vendors.

Pew: 88% of Mobile Internet Users Get News

The Pew Internet project has come out with a report, which I've written about at Search Engine Land and Screenwerk, on digital news consumption. It's based on US consumer survey data. Below I summarize the mobile news portion of the report.

Overall, 26% of American adults say they get some form of news via cell phone – that amounts to 33% of adult cell phone owners and 88% of adults who have mobile internet.

The typical on-the-go news consumer is a white male, age 34, who has graduated from college and is employed full-time. 

Among this subgroup of internet-using mobile phone users, we found that the vast majority get some kind of news online:

• 72% check weather reports on their cell
• 68% get news and current events information on their cell
• 49% have downloaded an application that allows them to access news, weather, sports, or other information on their cell
• 44% check sports scores and related information on their cell
• 35% check traffic information on their cell
• 32% get financial information or updates
• 31% get news alerts sent by text or email to their phones
• 88% say yes to at least one of the above

Source: Pew Internet Project 1/10 (n=2,259 adults)

No surprises here, news is one of the top mobile content categories. The report overall shows a multi-platform news enviornment where people are looking at news in traditional media, online and in mobile.

The "Internet" is now the third most common news source, outstripping traditional newpapers and radio (following local and national TV). Online, portals and aggregators are the dominant sources of news for consumers. 

Millennial Media: iPhone Continues to Gain Share

Millennial Media released its January SMART report, which offers a range of data about activity and ad campaigns on its network. Here are a few of the top-level datapoints and findings:

• Smartphones represented 58% of our network’s U.S. Smartphone impressions in January – a 20% increase month over month.
• The iPhone’s OS represented 56.6% of our network’s U.S. Smartphone impressions in January. iPhone has held the leading OS on our network over the last five months.
• RIM’s OS experienced a 5% decrease in January but still held the second largest share of U.S. Smartphone impressions on our network with a 20% share

The January report also republishes InsightExpress data about the greater efficacy of mobile marketing and advertising (vs. online):

According to Millennial's discussion of the InsightExpress data:

Mobile campaigns in the Retail Vertical showed the largest differences between online norms in three of the five categories, Aided Awareness, Purchase Intent, and Unaided Awareness, with index scores of 14, 7.9 and 5.7 respectively, according to InsightExpress.

The Travel, Automotive and Technology campaigns had similar increases above online norms in the Mobile Ad Awareness category with index scores of 4.8, 4.7 and 4.6. For advertisers, this is a potential positive indicator that consumers are more aware of advertising in these verticals. CPG campaigns indexed high in the Brand Favorability category with a 11.3 index score. The second best index was 7.0 for Automotive campaigns. In our Q4 Top 10 Mobile Ad Verticals, CPG ranked seventh while Automotive ranked tenth.

This better performance of mobile (vs. online) makes sense because of reduced ad clutter in mobile, the greater share of voice and the greater novelty of mobile advertising (so people notice). As mobile becomes mature some of these metrics may decline -- but that remains to be seen.  

Opera: Google Owns Mobile Search

According to the latest State of the Mobile Web report from Opera, Google enjoys mobile search dominance in numbers generally consistent with its lead and share on the PC Internet. Yahoo!, however, is stronger in mobile than it is on the PC. Bing has a tiny presence by comparison.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that these data are drawn from Opera Mini users and don't capture the iPhone and most activity on the other smartphone platforms. However I can tell you that directionally it's the same on most smartphone platforms.

Below are the customary data from Opera on top sites and handsets. The search share data are at the bottom. The full report is available here.

Opera has developed a version of its mobile browser for the iPhone and will be submitting it for approval shortly. It was demonstrated at 3GSM in Barcelona and received rave reviews. Apple will have a potential anti-trust issue in the US and Europe on its hands if it declines to allow third party browsers on the device. 

Gartner: Apple Displaces Windows Mobile at #3

Gartner has come out with its full year 2009 smartphone data. According to the IT consulting firm, Apple has displaced Windows Mobile (now Windows Phone) as the global number three player. RIM and Android also showed solid growth. According to Gartner:

The two best performers in 2009 were Android and Apple. Android increased its market share by 3.5 percentage points in 2009, while Apple's share grew by 6.2 percentage points from 2008, which helped it move to the No. 3 position and displace Microsoft Windows Mobile.

Here are the marketshare charts by hardware OEM and operating system:

Compare recent IDC smartphone estimates. Both IDC and now Gartner contradict Nokia's claim that it grew marketshare in Q4 2009.

Window (Mobile) 7 was unveiled at Mobile World Congress to much fanfare but won't be out until "holiday 2010." That means that Window Mobile's slide will accelerate as buyers either abandon or wait for the new OS to come out. 

Survey: IM Now Passé for Teens vs. SMS

That headline might have overreached a tiny bit, but Mediamark has found in its survey research that US teens now text more than send instant messages on the PC. Though it should come as no surprise, this is apparently the first time it's happened according to the firm:

Some 57% of teenagers report they text messaged on their cell phones in the last 30 days, compared to 42% who instant messaged on a computer in the same time frame, according to the TeenMark study . . .

The number of teens who text has increased 50% since 2007, vs. a 13% decline in the number of teens using instant messaging. Texting is now the top feature teens use on mobile cell phones, aside from making phone calls.

Millennial Media Offers 2009 'Year in Review'

Millennial Media has compiled a number of top lists from 2009 and put them together in a year in review report. The data are drawn from Millennial's own network and associated ad campaigns but the company says "Millennial Media is the largest mobile ad network, [so] we anticipate much of this data is fairly representative of the mobile ad industry as a whole."

Here are a few of the lists (covering all of 2009):

Campaign distribution by objective:

• 70% brand
• 30% performance 

Growth of mobile sites/applications (YoY): 117%

Advertiser growth (YoY): 54%

Top handsets by share of impressions:

1. iPhone
2. BlackBerry Curve
3. BlackBerry Pearl
4. HTC/Google G1
5. BlackBerry Storm 

Percent of advertisers using rich media in mobile: 17%

Top ad spending "verticals" in 2009:

1. Portals & directories
2. Entertainment
3. Telecommunications
4. Dating
5. CPG
6. Retail & restaurants
7. Finance
8. Travel
9. Automotive
10. Health 

Compare the IAB's top online spending categories/industries:

Here's Millennial's December report for comparison.

Retrevo: 20% Under 35 Click Mobile Ads

Electronics comparison site Retrevo conducted an online survey (n=1,000) of US adults earlier this month, regarding mobile shopping and receptiveness to mobile advertising. The data are generally consistent with our data and other information in the market; consumers increasingly use their phones as shopping aids/tools but are ambivalent toward mobile advertising. (One note: attitudes and behavior don't line up in the discussion of mobile ads.)

Younger users were generally more "advanced" in their behaviors and receptive to mobile advertising. To see the full results and Retrevo's discussion go here. 

Q: Have you ever used a mobile phone to research products, compare prices, find retailers or to shop?

Source: Retrevo (2/09, n=1,000)

Q: Have you made a purchase using a mobile phone?

Source: Retrevo (2/09, n=1,000)

Q: Have you ever responded to an advertisement on your mobile phone?

Source: Retrevo (2/09, n=1,000)

The top chart, about using the handset during shopping, is the one to focus on. We can qualify all the findings as perhaps being not entirely representative of the mainstream shopper, etc. However, we will see huge numbers of people using handsets for research and other information (looking for deals?) during the shopping process. 

Much of the so-called "mobile commerce" is going to be about finding the right product for less online: I confirm I want it in the store and buy it for less on Amazon, for example. This scenario may eventually become a problem for retailers and boost e-commerce, ironically. 

Ads that are relevant and timely (think coupons, deals, discounts in shopping) will also succeed despite apparent consumer hostility. 

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Related: Shopping by Mobile Will Grow to $119 Billion in 2015

This forecast apparently consists of virtual goods payments and actual mobile buying of conventional goods. The former is a big market getting bigger. The latter will grow but the $119 billion figure is very aggressive. Dominant scenario is reflected the first chart above: using the phone to research, check prices -- not buy via mobile. 

Facebook the King of UK Mobile Media

Metrics firm comScore and the GSMA last week reported figures for UK mobile Internet visits, time on site and so on. Consistent with some of the other data in the market, Facebook is the winner across categories, followed by Google.

As you can see from the chart below, and unlike in the US, the carrier portals have a presence in the top 10:

Compare the Nielsen "top 10" US mobile sites, which put Facebook at number five:

See related post: Facebook's 100 Million Mobile Users.

Mobile High on Marketer 'To-Do' List but Confusion Remains

Again and again we see surveys that suggest or otherwise argue that mobile is now in the mix, that reflect advertisers and agencies' increasing interest in mobile. But they're still a little foggy about what to do and exactly how to do it.

Take the following as another example of the above; conducted by digital marketing services firm R2i a survey fielded in January (sample size unknown) showed that many marketers now consider mobile "important" but are vague about strategy and tactics:

How important is "mobile marketing" to your overall marketing strategy for 2010?

• Very important: 22%
• Important: 26%
• Somewhat important: 28%
• Not important: 8%

(76% consider it at least "somewhat important." But that leaves 16% unaccounted for; presumably they're in the "no" or "N/A" category.)

Main reason for executing a mobile marketing campaign:

• Company awareness: 41%
• Lead generation: 33%

What constitutes success?

• Quantifying ROI: 43%
• Increase in customers: 49%

Impediments to executing a mobile marketing campaign

• “not knowing how to develop the business case": 32%
• “not enough analytics to measure the ROI": 30%

Budgeting

The release reported that "63% of respondents said they’d only allocate up to 15% of their budgets on mobile marketing." On the one hand this is a generous number for a new medium; however it also indicates that people don't really know what the appropriate amount is (it would be campaign and objective specific of course).

Campaign and marketing focus

• Mobile website development: 52%
• Mobile app development: 42%

Importance of smartphone platforms (those indicating "very important")

• iPhone: 59%
• BlackBerry: 40%
• Android: 8%

This is a single survey but I would imagine fairly representative of the following issues:

• Growing advertiser interest
• Confusion over how to quantify and measure success
• Where to spend/invest in mobile
• What the objectives of campaigns should be 

No longer do mobile networks and firms need to educate marketers about why to do mobile as much as they need to promote concrete examples and best practices to show them how -- especially the role that mobile can play in the context of other traditional and digital marketing and advertising.

New US Mobile Numbers from comScore

Based on activity of US mobile subscribers 13 and older, comScore put out data today that covers September through December 2009. While comScore counts 234 mobile subscribers, CTIA claims 271 million US mobile subscribers. The four major US carriers report approximately 250 million. 

Here are the charts reflecting the comScore data: 

Google/Android doubled its market share during the Q4 period, while Palm, RIM and Windows Mobile all lost share. These Palm devices, notwithstanding the "plus" versions debuting at Verizon have clearly stalled. 

Here's "mobile content usage" according to comScore: 

The 27% number for "used (Internet) browser" is very consistent with survey data well pulled in 2009.

What that number translates into in terms of "mobile Internet usage" depends on whether you think the base is 234 million or 250 million users. In the former case, the number of US mobile Internet users would be 64 million; in the latter it would be just over 68 million (a number consistent with Nielsen's figure).

The social network figure (15.9%) translates into 39.7 million social network users (with a 250 million base).  

IDC Contradicts Nokia's Smartphone Claims

IDC has released its smartphone numbers and marketshare data for Q4 and FY 2009. After last week's discussion about whether Android had "tarnished" or slowed Apple's iPhone, these IDC numbers show strength for the Apple handset (growth outpaces competitors). Nokia remains number one followed by RIM and then Apple.

Here's what Nokia said about its own estimated marketshare in its most recent earnings release:

• Nokia estimated mobile device market share of 39% in Q4 2009, up from an estimated 37% in Q4 2008 and 38% in Q3 2009. The full year 2009 estimated market share was 38%, down from 39% in 2008.
• Nokia grew its converged device market share to an estimated 40%, from an estimated 35% in Q3 2009.

IDC contradicts that assertion with its own data and estimates, saying that the device maker's smartphone share is 38.9%, down from 40% a year ago. Here they are:

The smartest thing that Nokia can do in the near term to restore growth is to cut prices, which it is doing. It has also made its Navteq-supported mapping and navigation software free, prompting a huge number of downloads (one per second) since the announcement.

Pew Millennials Data Shows Mobile a Critical Medium for Reaching Youth

This may sound like data you've heard time and again (and it is): mobile phone ownership among younger people is nearing saturation. According to Pew, 75% of teens and 93% of 18-29 year-olds in the US have mobile phones.

New survey findings underscore that mobile is a critical medium (and by extension SMS because of its ubiquity) for reaching younger audiences. Here are some mobile-specific excerpts from Pew's recent millennial social media survey data:

• Among teen cell phone users, more  than a quarter (27%) say they use their cell phone to go online . . . 35% of adults report that they access the Internet using a cell phone or other handheld device.

Extrapolating from the 35% number, which is admittedly self-reported survey data, that would mean something approaching 80 million US adults are accessing the Internet on mobile phones. Nielsen's number is 68 million; our survey data from 2009 argue that 27% to 29% of mobile users are accessing the Internet on mobile handsets.

Here's demographic data regarding US "wireless" Internet access by device category and age: 

Daily teen activities, showing the primacy of SMS:  

Related (per Nielsen): "American teenagers are using 3,146 messages a month, which translates into more than 10 messages every hour of the month that they are not sleeping or in school" 

Satisfaction Higher for eReaders than Netbooks

An NPD Group survey has found (n=1,000) that 93% of eReader owners are “very satisfied” or “somewhat satisfied” with those devices. The survey didn't break out the devices (or at least what I saw). However most of those devices are going to be Kindle or Sony tablets at this point. 

From the publicly released portions of the report:

• 60% of owners said wireless access was their favorite feature on their e-Reader; touch was mentioned by 23% of owners (these folks are not the Kindle owners)

Suggested improvements:

• more book title availability -- 42%
• longer battery life -- 39%
• color screens -- 34%

The survey also found that "about three-in-ten owners say they use at least one another device for reading e-books, such as a PC or a smartphone." 

Compare this to a Q2 2009 survey of netbook owners by NPD: 

• "58% of consumers who bought a netbook instead of a notebook said they were very satisfied with their purchase, compared to 70% of consumers who planned on buying a netbook from the start."
• Among those 18-24, "65% said they bought their netbooks expecting better performance, and only 27% said their netbooks performed better than expected."

This higher level of dissatisfaction among netbook owners goes to expectations of buyers who anticipated more than what they actually received. There were undoubtedly different and fewer high expectations of eReaders. However the iPad may face very high expectations. By the same token it addresses some of the "wish list" of features above.

NPD in August last year also put out survey findings that asserted 37% of consumers were interested in purchasing an eReaders. Other surveys closer in time to the iPad launch showed much higher demand/interest.

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Related: Amazon Said to Buy Touch Start-Up (to better compete with iPad)

Only 43 LBS Apps Offered Across Platforms

Skyhook Wireless has done a very interesting analysis that seeks to reveal how many of the thousands of location-enabled apps are available across multiple smartphone platforms. Curiously there are only 43 it turns out. According to the report:

There are nearly 6,000 iPhone location apps, 900 on Android and 300 on BlackBerry. Only 43 of these apps are available in all three stores. Of these, only six are paid. Each of these six paid apps, detailed on the next page, has a distinct per-platform price point. These apps are always significantly more expensive on Blackberry than the counterpart versions of the same paid app on iPhone and Android. For example, Wikiango is offered for free on the iPhone and for $19.99 on Blackberry.

The most fascinating aspect of this, beyond the lack of overlap, is variable pricing for the same apps. BlackBerry users are getting stuck, it would appear, with much higher prices for the same apps. Here are three "case stuides" from Skyhook showing these price differences by platform:

As shown above, there's a $10 difference between the cost of the Zagat app on the iPhone/Android ($9.99) and BlackBerry ($19.99). Why is that? It may have to do with the demographics of the RIM user population and its legacy "enterprise user" base. Developers may simply believe they can charge more. There may be another explanation, but it's not evident.

More generally Skyhook also shows a comparison of free vs. paid apps across the three platforms. In the aggregate the iPhone has the most paid LBS apps, which is partly a function of having more apps in general:

Millennial Media: Portals & Directories Become Top Category by Ad Spend

Millennial Media's December/Q4 SMART report reflects some interesting trends, but mostly incredmental changes from November. The top ad spending category is now "portals and directories," which includes major Internet players (e.g., Yahoo, MSN). Travel moved up from category number 10 to number eight, as well.

Here are the highlights, as reported verbatim by Millennial:

• The U.S. Mobile Web: Decreased slightly to 66.6M users, according to Nielsen (Nov.)
• For the first time since S.M.A.R.T™ was first published in March ’09, Entertainment was not the top advertising vertical.  Portals and Directories took the top slot in Q4. Telecom, Finance, Entertainment and Dating round out the top 5.
• Engagement: Average monthly page views per user increased to 125 in December from 113 in November; and, average user session times increased from 5:02 to 5:09 (min:sec).
• Devices: Samsung represented approximately 23% of our network’s impression share in Q4. But the iPhone was the leading smart phone on our network with 41% of our network’s U.S. impressions. 

We don't know all the specific advertisers in these categories but I would argue that at least five (maybe six) of these categories are substantially or mostly concerned with local "on their face":

• Entertainment
• Dating 
• Retail/restaurants
• Travel
• Automotive 

Turning to handsets and OS market share, here's what Millennial is seeing on its network:

Compare AdMob's smartphone share numbers (North America) from December:

In both cases the iPhone is has the largest share, but on Millennial RIM is second, while AdMob's network shows Android handsets second to the iPhone. Among the top 20 mobile handsets appearing on Millennial's network, the G1 is the only Android handset reflected to date.