STATS PACK: New Mobile Search Forecasts; More Monthly AdMob Traffic & Trends; Moving Into Me-Portals?
In-brief: Between trips, meetings and meet-ups I have put together metrics MSG should report as a matter of record (in line with the MSG mission to be a knowledge resource). Here’s a double dose of stats that matter. Admittedly, I’m slightly behind, but should be back on track after CTIA. Incidentally, I still have some slots open and encourage you to pitch to MSG. Contact me directly or my PA at andrea@msearchgroove.com
MOBILE SEARCH: A new report and a great offer for MSG readers! (I’ve not only been speaking at conferences; I’ve been sealing deals with an exciting line-up of partners to provide rich content, exclusive metrics and special offers to the community. Check back regularly – because you’ll like what you see!)
In this case, it’s the new release mobile search report from Juniper Research. The report, which has cleverly divided mobile search into categories including local and on/off-portal content search, forecasts annual revenues generated by mobile search services will rise from $1.5 billion this year to $4.8 billion by 2013. Local search services will be the most popular sector with advertisers, attracting 40 percent of mobile search ad spend over the forecast period.
Not surprisingly, the China/Far East region will generate the most revenues from mobile search services over the next five years, followed by Western Europe and North America. A word of caution: Don’t get too upbeat about the lucrative link between search and advertising. “An ‘advertising overload’ might act as a disincentive to consumers and might ultimately limit adoption, while there are continuing public concerns over search engine usage of personal data,” the report concludes.
Order Mobile Search and Discovery, Opportunities and Markets 2008-2013 from CMS via this link and you’ll receive a free copy of The Worldwide Directory of Mobile Network Operators (GBP995 value), which lists 700 operator profiles and 2,900 named management contacts.
ADMOB: Thanks to Jason Spero, MSG gets AdMob’s monthly Mobile Metrics report first (!). But this time I was too busy with my travel to Thailand, and engaged with subsequent trips to mobile operators around Germany, to post it before today. As MSG has recognized the importance of this must-read monthly report from the start, and posted it as a matter of record, we’ll continue today with a look at the February Mobile Metrics Report and Ecosystem Events. This time the report is chock-full of valuable data at the country, manufacturer and device level – going a long way toward classifying its network traffic in a way that allows advertisers to target devices and the people who own them.
For the February report, AdMob created a classification for smartphones and began tracking the traffic share it can attribute to these devices. In future, AdMob plans to include smartphone operating system data as well. Overall, AdMob, which serves in excess of a whopping 2 billion ads per month, reports 17.3 percent of ad requests to its network worldwide were from smartphones.
On the whole, AdMob made significant progress in February in identifying previously unidentified traffic and so decreasing unidentified devices to 14 percent of requests. As a result, Kyocera and Motorola show a jump in traffic in February. However, the top devices per geography remained the same (you’ll find complete coverage in the Archive section of the site). Note: AdMob does not serve targeted ads to unidentifiable traffic. It’s also interesting to note that iPhone traffic flattened in February in the U.S. This is consistent with expectations that the novelty of the devices given as gifts during the holiday period would eventually wear off. It will be interesting to see March data – and MSG will have it first.
MARKETING SURVEY: While AdMob provides marketers with an important feedback loop, a new Sapient annual Interactive Marketing Survey underlines the lack of confidence among marketing senior level respondents in their organization’s abilities to track campaigns across multiple channels in real-time. Nearly half the respondents said they do not believe campaign data provided to them evenly measures and compares performance across all digital channels. Social networking was cited the least “trackable” digital channel, according to the survey. It was also identified as the channel with the largest anticipated increase in marketing analytics spend for 2008. The report covers online and mobile trends. A mobile-only figure from the report: 14 percent of marketers plan to increase their spending on mobile in 2008.
PORTAL AD SPENDING: It’s not a mobile-specific report, but it’s easy to imagine this trend appearing sooner than later in the mobile space. The annual outlook on digital advertising trends (via MediaPost) reports web portals lost 5 percent of online ad spending last year to the “long tail of sites” known as verticals. In fact, CPMs for portal sites increased only 7 percent last year compared to 30 percent for verticals. If you consider the rise of vertical search services in mobile, as well as the move from “megaportals to me-portals”, then all the stars are aligned for a similar shift in the mobile space. Perhaps even sooner than we think…
The inspiration for my takeaway comes from Andreas Constantinou, Research Director at VisionMobile, and esteemed colleague and contributor to MSG. He outlined the mobile megatrends (of which me-portals is one) in this excellent PowerPoint presentation which you can view at his site (and it rocks!). Congratulations on the new design and functionality Andreas! Job well done and a destination I am proud to promote in the Knowledge Sharing section of MSG.
The best from the rest…a recap of recent reports
OFF-DECK RULES!: The New Frontier: Portable and Mobile Gaming – a report from Parks Associates that examines the business models of more than 30 companies — predicts gamers will soon begin migrating carrier-maintained storefronts on the handset (another way of saying on-portal/on-deck) to “newer, more innovative channels.” It estimates mobile game revenue generated through carrier decks will decrease from 90 percent of the total U.S. mobile gaming revenue to 72 percent in the next five years. By 2012, off-deck channels and ad-supported or subsidized mobile gaming will account for 28 percent of the market. (more)
CONTENT MARKET: By 2015, mobile content could be worth well in excess of $1 trillion, with voice comprising only a 10 percent share of the market. (more)
SOCIAL NETWORKING: Just arrived in my inbox – a new 180+ page report from Visiongain estimates revenue from mobile social networking and user-generated content will grow to $70 billion in 2012. Meanwhile, an Informa report on the topic has a different take. It concludes that the number of mobile social networking users exceeded 50 million, approximately 2.3 percent of the global mobile user population, on December 31 2007. Growth in users and community registrations (some multiple) will continue at a CAGR of 30-50 percent, depending on the type of community and the region. By 2012, there will be between 12.5 percent penetration of mobile social networks among mobile users globally in the most conservative scenario, approximately 23 percent in the high growth scenario. Revenues from mobile social networking (and it isn’t clear from coverage how Informa defines that) in 2006 exceeded $1.5 billion and more than doubled in 2007. By 2012, revenues generated from “all business models in this industry” is forecast to reach $28.9 billion in the most conservative scenario and $52 billion in the high growth scenario. Finally, a study conducted by market researchers SSI for Martin Dawes Systems, which polled 1,000 U.K. business and consumer subscribers, casts some doubt on schemes that lure users with social networks and free VoIP calls. Over 70 percent of social network users said they wouldn’t join a social network launched by their mobile service provider. However, a quarter of respondents said easier mobile access to social networks would increase their usage of such services, indicating social networking could drive take-up of mobile internet service and contribute to its growth for service providers. (more)
UGC MEETS LBS: No surprise, but a welcome confirmation of the trend MSG has tracked from the start. ABI Research reports user-generated content is core to location-aware services. It points to a long line of services and apps released over the last months that engage users’ communities in updating content and adding their own. Predictably, many of these services (GyPSii, for example) are embedded within a mobile social networking context. (more)
LOCATION: Will LBS boom? Gartner thinks so. It forecasts the total number of subscribers to location-based communications worldwide will grow from 16 million in 2007 to 43.2 million in 2008, reaching nearly 300 million by 2011. (more)
MOBILE ADVERTISING: ABI Research forecasts market drivers including flat-rate data plans and new platforms for advertising-supported mobile search, video and gaming content services, will pave the way for global mobile marketing to grow to over $24 billion in 2013, from just $1.8 billion in 2007. A recent survey by ABI Research found that consumers are cautious about mobile advertising – unless there is a benefit to them. While 54 percent of survey respondents indicated they were totally opposed to mobile marketing messages, 70 percent of those same respondents said that an incentive such as a ringtone or a free song might make them receptive to mobile marketing. (more) Meanwhile, The Kelsey Group (in its annual forecast) estimates global directional advertising revenues (comprising local search, print and Internet Yellow Pages) will increase significantly from $45 billion in 2007 to $147 billion globally in 2012, representing a 26.8 percent CAGR. (No clear breakdown – so no idea how mobile really figures in the equation…) (more)
USABILITY: A third of mobile games paid for and downloaded by users in the U.K. fail to work owing to compatibility issues, according to mobile application developer GetJar. The company claims users spend over GBP 29 million on games they never get to play. GetJar blames insufficient compatibility testing for the high failure rate. Only 15 per cent of gamers surveyed said that games they had paid for always worked. (Methodology is a bit thin – so no idea how many users were surveyed.) (more)
