The Worldwide State of the Mobile Web

 

 

 

 

 

 

The mobile web has reached a “critical mass” this year according to a report Nielsen Mobile just published.

The US is the most advanced nation with nearly 40 million Americans – 16% of all US mobile users – using their handset to browse. The UK and then Italy come second and third in the 16 countries surveyed.

 

Check the complete paper @: http://www.nielsenmobile.com/documents/CriticalMass.pdf

The Mobile Ecosystem (2): M-Commerce is not a Lovesong + Leaders in Mobile Search + Payment via NFC Mobiles

 

 

 

Nine Million U.S. Mobile Users Have Used Their Mobile Phone To Pay For Goods Or Services

Nielsen Mobile presented an overview of the opportunities in mobile commerce at the Internet Retailer Conference and Exhibition in Chicago, IL (June 9 – 12, 2008).  Among the findings presented:

• As of Q1 2008, 3.6 percent (9.2 million) of US mobile subscribers use their phone to pay for goods or services
• Men are more likely than women to use their phone for commerce: 4.5 percent (4.9 million) of men and 3.0 percent (4.3 million) of women say they have made a purchase using their phone
• Adults ages 25–34 are the most likely to have made a purchase using their phone: 5.4 percent (3 million) of adults ages 25–34 have made a purchase, compared to 3.6 percent of all mobile subscribers

Mobile websites are one popular way consumers make purchases over the mobile phone.  Of the 40 million active US users of the mobile web in April 2008, 5 million accessed mobile shopping and auction websites – up 73% from April 2007, when just 2.9 million mobile users did so. Auction site eBay.com is the most popular shopping or auction destination on the mobile web, with 3.4 million unique visitors in April.

Purchasing items via text messaging is another growing form of mobile commerce.  Some services allow consumers to send text messages to a phone number or mobile shortcode in order to be charged for goods or services directly on their mobile phone bills.  Already, 6.5 million US mobile consumers say they’ve used text messaging to purchase an item.

Nielsen’s study reveals that security is the number one concern among those mobile data users not yet participating in m-commerce: 

• 41 % of data users who do not participate in mobile commerce say security is their biggest concern
• 23 % say they worry about being charged for the airtime
• 21 % say they don’t trust that the transaction will be completed

 
Nielsen Mobile provides Google and Yahoo! Mobile-Search Data as Well

Google leads in mobile Internet search provider share followed by Yahoo!, together accounting for 79% of the mobile Internet search market.

Top 3 Mobile Internet Search Providers for Q1 2008 by Provider Share
1.  Google  (61%)
2.  Yahoo!  (18%)
3.  MSN  (5%)

• 65% of Google search users and 63% of Yahoo! searchers are male.
• At 9.0 searches per month, Google users search more frequently than users of any other mobile Internet search provider.  Yahoo! is the third most frequently-used provider, with Yahoo! users searching 6.7 times per month.

contextualize

NFC mobiles on track in Asia

Payment via phones outfitted with near field communications chips will happen, industry players assure, and Asia is expected to get the technology first.

By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia, Friday, June 27, 2008 06:41 PM

The day you can pay for goods with a wave of your mobile phone is nearing, slowly but surely–and this will likely happen first in Asia, say NFC (near field communications) industry players.

[...] Chia Yong Choon, regional marketing director (Asia-Pacific and Korea) at NXP Semiconductors said in an interview with ZDNet Asia: “NFC is very affordable. The cost is comparable to designing other features into handsets, such as GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, et cetera. Certainly, cost will not be a barrier.”

The bigger barrier, say analysts, is the underdevelopment of the payment ecosystem around NFC-enabled phones.

[...]

M-commerce still three to five years away

By Victoria Ho, ZDNet Asia, Wednesday, June 11, 2008 07:54 PM

[...] According to Mehta, for many countries, regulation is often the deciding factor for mobile payment implementation.

“Regulatory issues will either hold back or propel mobile commerce, by either making it difficult to implement or make it mandatory…China and India are still struggling with regulations, for example,” he said.

In terms of technology, Mehta said an area that needs addressing is the standardization of payment interfaces across handsets. “Implementing Web standards will help ensure the experience is the same for everyone,” he noted.

Another issue, said Mehta, is security, which should be a top priority as hardware and software makers develop devices and applications for m-commerce.

Research firm Informa predicted early last year that m-commerce would generate US$359 million by 2011. Most of the revenues will come from the Asia-Pacific region, according to Informa principal analyst Nick Lane. [End of Article / Quote]

The Mobile Ecosystem (1): White Paper

On the Adobe Mobile and Devices DevNet site there is a new white paper: Understanding the Mobile Ecosystem. The paper xplains the basics of the mobile content marketplace.