In 2012 we saw the tremendous growth of smartphones. In this post I will be analyzing the current market share and will be predicting the future of mobile in 2013 based on present statistics.
Let’s Analyze current mobile market share:
From the chart it’s clear that the market is presently dominated by Android. Apple comes in second with surprisingly a much lower percentage. The last three Blackberry, Windows Phone 7 and 'other' phones make up the remaining percentage.
Let’s now analyze how people use their mobile phones:
The data shows that mobile phones are used mainly for playing games, checking weather conditions and Maps/search and social networking (the area most relevant to marketers). The percentage of mobile phones as a marketing platform is increasing each year.
Let’s analyze the percentage of people who have purchased using a smartphone (US & Canada only):
Data Source: Google http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com
The statistics show purchases made in year 2012 for four countries. The data showcases the percentage of private smartphone users who use their device to access the internet and those who actually purchased something on their smartphone.
It was predicted in early 2012 that mobile will constitute more than 40%, of revenue, but the statistics at end of the year show the opposite. If mobile eventually generates more than 30% of revenue, then more attention can be given to the area.
What about search through Smartphones? Did people really search using their Smartphones as predicted? Let’s analyze the graph.
Data Source: Google http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com
This is very interesting; more than 60% of smartphone users use their phone for online search. This means the overall search from mobile is increasing and with the addition of voice-based applications like Apple’s Siri and a similar applications in Android, the percentage of people who search using mobile will surely increase.
The image below shows the total visits on an eCommerce site and the area highlighted in red is the total visits from Mobile. In 2012 the site got 17.56% of visits from mobile devices.
Here is the list of top 10 mobile devices which includes tablets.
Since the site is not optimized for mobile devices, the conversion rate over the year 2012 is very low, see the image below:
Ecommerce Conversion Rate
Facebook recently announced that in the third quarter of 2012, the company earned $150 million from mobile ads, 14% of its total revenue.
Pandora reported that in the second quarter 58% of its revenue, or $59 million, came from mobile ads. Twitter executives have said that on certain days, the social network earns a majority of its daily revenue from mobile ads.
Growth of mobile in 2012 for all business sectors was encouraging, those who have mobile versions of their website had the advantage and likely saw increased revenue as a result.
Prediction for 2013
Credit: (searchenginewatch.com)
Search percentage via Mobile increases and Mobile Optimization takes Centre Stage
Gartner predicts sales of smart devices (which include Smartphones & Tablets) will rise by $1.2 billion in 2013, after analyzing the present statistics I predict 1 in 3 paid clicks will come from a tablet or Smartphone and consumers will increasingly make purchasing decisions solely on their mobile devices.
2013 is the year where business should be allocating their resources to focus more on mobile sites. Recently I read a post by Avinash Kaushik which explains some of the best ways which should be kept in mind while optimizing a site for mobile.
Below is a example with images, he explains that he was searching for an online air ticket booking, and he gone through 3 websites, see below what he experienced:
(Credit: http://www.kaushik.net)
Above we see 3 websites which he analyzed; it’s very clear the only site which seems to be optimized for mobile is the third one. If we analyze the other two websites it’s clear that people visiting these two sites will have a much harder time booking tickets and some will likely become frustrated and abandon the process.
This is a great example that shows how important it is to make a user-friendly mobile site.
The Increase of mobile investment
With the increase of search through mobile, both publishers and advertisers will concentrate more on mobile devices. The percentage of social media mobile advertising will likely increase as well. As mentioned earlier, Facebook is getting 14% of its total revenue from mobile ads and more than half of its users access Facebook on their mobile device. This percentage is only likely to increase in 2013.
Increase in Online Mobile site building platforms
2012 we saw many startups which help average users create mobile sites quickly and easily. Many of them are paid and few are free of cost. As the mobile market is rapidly increasing many companies have created mobile site building platforms for users, one of the best in the industry is TechWyse’s InstantMobile which comes with a lot of added features including lead tracking solution with customer support.
Conclusion
I am not a prophet, just someone who likes to look at past and present statistics in an effort to predict the future. As we know, the rate of mobile and internet penetration has increased year over year and the market will only continue to grow in the future. As marketing professionals we must focus on the customer experience. When a customers is satisfied, the lead is nurtured and when leads converts business grows!
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I want to start a website. It will be asking for money only to fund the seminars associated with holding meetings for the clients and for mailouts. How should I go about setting that up?.
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Blackberry’s market share will be small, but a dedicated following (they just refinanced). IOS will also have a larger, dedicated fanbase, but Android will continue to be the king. Google is an unstoppable Juggernaut.
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Brilliant post – and it rang especially true for me. I find that more and more I just go for my phone, even at home to do the things I used to do on computers and I can definitely see how one would want to adjust to the shift.
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Nice post Christy…….Worth reading.
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Hey. These are very helpful data especially that mobile marketing is anticipated to become mainstream.
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Great information, but yeah, it just shows how many smartphones people now use, it’s like a need to the society now. Nearly everyone has one now, and it’s increased dramatically. Good information with stats about mobile uses. Keep it up.
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I never thought that so many people would be playing games on their smart-phones. I figured web browsing or social media would be at the top and games would be second or third. I guess that’s why I see so many ads while I play angry birds on my iphone.
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This was a very informative post and very surprising. It is not very surprising that apple is number one when it comes to those purchases and browsing. Apple had outdone themselves and hope they stay strong after the death of Steve Jobs. If a company can make a better device than apple and be able to advertise it good enough then they will surely get more money than apple. Though there is going and already is tough competition in this industry.
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@Dejeesh, As you said more & more users will be visiting sites through mobile devices which includes tablets too. In 2013 we can see many sites building mobile friendly versions.
And the answer to your question is simple, we must create mobile friendly version of the website. To confirm this we can analyze the present metrics from Mobile visit in analytics, If there is a higher percentage of visits then we must respond by creating mobile-friendly websites.
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This was a nice and easy read, lots of information!
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I have to say mobile is taking over. I have really liked to see the mobile coming, but for me it is not what I want to have. I have fat fingers and always hit the wrong buttons!
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@Jay As you said “One thing that fascinated me is China is much ahead than US in using mobile online.” I too was stunned while analyzing the data. The source is official from Google and provided through their official site http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/mobileplanet/en/ You can analyze more interesting facts through the site.
Weather was very much Trending search queries in 2012, Yes as you said the reason might be due the pre installed weather related apps in smartphones.
Let us see & analyze which all prediction will come true by December 2013.
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@Kiran & @Angitha, Thanks for reading my post. I believe you find this information useful. Soon you can expect another blog post.
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Yes Christy, 2013 will be the year that marketers focus more on mobile and tablet conversions. We can see in 2012 tremendous rise of users accessing content by a mobile or tablet browser and it seems to continue. For Eg. 41% of users accessing news sites and eCommerce sites via a tablet/Mobile browser. And in 2013 we can see the increased mobile integration.
For 2013, advertisers need a better understanding of how to do mobile marketing, because the “features” and “platform” are the most important factors when choosing a Smartphone.
We can see a battle between smart phone developers in the coming years 🙂
One doubt remains, should we create Mobile-friendly interface Websites to get the better mobile integration ?
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Thanks Christy for letting us know the scope and the way at which the mobile users are growing. One thing that fascinated me is China is much ahead than US in using mobile online. But i cannot believe that weather is the second thing people search for, may be it’s because the weather app is default on major smart phones like iPhone & Samsung.
Agree to the fact that the future is mCommerce and the conversion will happen quickly on mobiles.
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Thanks for sharing this insight with us Christy. This was an informative post, interesting fact is that i could just turn around and say this to you face to face :). Anyways, I’m looking forward to read your next post.
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This was a great read Chrisy, Hoping to see your next post soon.