BII MOBILE INSIGHTS: Microsoft May Be Winner In Apple Victory Over Samsung

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Microsoft May Be Winner In Apple Victory Over Samsung (WSJ)
Apple victory over Samsung further cements the company's dominance of the wireless industry and could accelerate the push by a variety of players to popularize a third alternative to the iPhone and to the Android ecosystem. It may provide a new boost to Microsoft's effort as it seeks to win support from carriers and device manufacturers. The future of the Android ecosystem is now tinged with uncertainty, with other Android hardware and software designs seen to be vulnerable to lawsuits. To add insult to injury, the iPad Mini has been confirmed for an October release.

TABLET MARKET FORECAST: Sales Will Top 450 Million Units A Year By 2016 (BII Research)
We're updating our global tablet forecast, which continues to call for explosive growth of the tablet market over the next 5 years. Here are the key points:

We're modestly reducing our unit forecast because "mini" tablets are now cannibalizing e-readers faster than we expected. We think this will lead to fewer e-readers being sold.
We project that global tablet revenue will grow at a 45 percent compound annual growth rate between 2012 and 2016.
We project that average selling prices will continue to fall rapidly, from about $420 this year to $290 in 2016.
We project that tablets will be a $130 billion market by 2016

Tablets are a disruptive media consumption technology, not just a pleasure device for the wealthy.

Mobile Video Ads Moving Toward The TV Model (Freewheel via MobileMarketing)
Consumers watching video content on mobile devices are moving towards the model tried-and-tested on TV: the ad break over the pre-roll. The research, by Freewheel, shows that viewers can tolerate up to eight ads per 20 minutes of video. Freewheel's second quarter 2012 Video Monetization Report reveals that video views on smartphones, tablets, and game consoles doubled, hitting a record of more than 1 billion video views. The proportion of those watching to the end of ads rose to 91%, suggesting viewers are happy to exchange ads for mobile viewing. JoAnna Foyle Abel, the vice president of marketing at Freewheel says, "It's all about striking the right balance... The trick is to monetize your content without disastrously eroding the viewer experience."

Mobile Consumer Survey: What You Need To Know (Adobe)
Digital marketers have been challenged to understand how consumers engage with 2 new categories of mobile devices: 1) smartphones and 2) tablets. Here are some insights:

For consumers who own both a smartphone and a tablet, the primary device is still the smartphone (88%).
Facebook is the dominant social network accessed via mobile at 85%, followed by Twitter at 35%, and Google+ at 21%.
Mobile ads presented in both sites and apps have a high click-through rate (42% and 37%, respectively).
Location services are on the rise and are being driven by consumer incentives to check in. Younger demographics are more likely to check in (35%) versus senior at 18%.

Over 42% have clicked-thru on mobile advertising, displayed on mobile websites? That's noteworthy.

Traffic To Corporate Sites Hits High Of 11% In July (Investis)
Mobile traffic to corporate websites reached a high of 11.1% in July 2012. These statistics come from corporate website analytics only as opposed to more general web traffic data gathered from search engines, consumer sites, social media platforms etc. These results indicate that the use of mobile has more than doubled from the same month the year before, for over a year. In July last year, mobile visits stood at 4.8%; they now top in at 11.1% and look to be growing all the time. Not surprising but the iPad continues to extend its lead over rival mobile handsets.

The Most Important Guidelines Of Mobile Web Development (Smashing Hub)
Development in the world of mobile devices has made things a lot easier for mobile users. Here are the most important mobile web development guidelines:

Initiate with analytics
Visitor profiling
Minimize the use of images
Do not rely on Javascript
Optimize download speed
Horizontal and vertical layouts

And much more but the most important guideline for mobile web development is to focus more on functionality and speed.

Shopping On Mobile Devices This Holiday Will Be Like Nothing We've Seen (Retail Online Integration)
The impact that mobile will have on holiday shopping this year will be unlike anything we've ever seen. According to comScore, more than 234 million Americans own mobile devices. Even more staggering is Cisco's prediction that the number of Internet-connected mobile devices on the planet will outnumber humans in 2012. Smartphones and tablets offer a level of accessibility and user engagement that can't be matched by any other platform, which is why brands and merchants need to make mobile their priority. Merchants need to pay close attention to industry trends if they hope to succeed in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Mobile Users Of The Future (CircleID)
There are 953 million smartphone subscriptions globally, but 6.1 billion voice (and text) mobile phone subscriptions. We're just skimming the surface of potential mobile Web users. So imagine the good news that will mean for potential sales when leads grow at an exponential rate. And while the U.S., China and Japan have the most mobile Web users today, it looks like Brazil, India and Vietnam are where mobile technology adoption is occurring the most rapidly. If you're responsible for your organization's IT infrastructure, these numbers matter. Mobility continues to grow and, more than ever, mobile-accessible sites are expected for businesses of all sizes.

4G Is Being Hailed As The Holy Grail Of Mobile Internet (Daily Mail)
Doubtful. Very few phones currently in use will be able to actually take advantage of 4G because their software and radio receivers are not compatible with the new system. Not a single iPhone in the land (U.K.), for example, is 4G compatible. This may change with the advent of the iPhone 5, which happens coincidentally one day after the U.K. 4G network goes live, but it is looking quite possible that although this machine may be 4G compatible in the U.S. it won’t be here as a different part of the spectrum will be used. Apple’s iPads won’t work on 4G either.

Questions With An NFC Expert (Blackberry)
Near Field Communications is a short-range wireless technology. According to Geoffrey MacGillivray, Manager, Services Security, Payments & NFC at RIM, there has been a lot of publicity around the introduction of NFC technology in mobile phones. And more and more companies and manufacturers are getting onboard with NFC. This is a new technology and will be adopted over the next several years. The vision of having NFC as a part of your daily life is one that we all should subscribe to. It’s going to take a little while to get there, but we’re pretty excited about how things are moving.

Smartphones Overtake Feature Phones In China (IDC via The New Web)
IDC‘s latest figures for China’s mobile market are out and the research firm has revealed that smartphone shipments outnumbered that of feature phones for the first time. The company reported that 44 million smartphones shipped during the period (April - June), that’s 51% of the total number of devices that IDC estimates were shipped during the period. Shipments of Apple devices dropped by one half during the quarter, but that lull is largely unsurprisingly given that consumers are holding out for the iPhone 5. What is significant, however, is the rise of alternative options for Chinese smartphone users.

Chinese Mobile Internet Is "Backward" (The New Web)
China Ministry of Industry Vice Minister Liu Lihua candidly admitted that technology in his country’s mobile Internet industry, such as core devices and operating systems, have been “relatively backward” and have left overseas OS-makers like Apple and Google space to flourish in the market. Chinese Internet industry has developed its own titans, namely Tencent (IM, social networking), Baidu (search), Sina (Web portal, social networking) and Alibaba (ecommerce). However, critics have accused domestic players, big and small, of failing to innovate and instead resorting to cloning successful overseas businesses.

Nook Usage Jumps, Different Web Behavior Than Kindle Users (Chitika)
According to Chitika, between June and August, the Barnes & Noble Nook’s Web usage increased 25.8% while the Kindle Fire’s increased by a meager 3.8%. Nook users are much more active online than the Kindle Fire users. While Amazon reported a 29% increase in sales of the Kindle Fire during the last quarter, there is no apparent correlation between the sales figures and actual Web usage. On the other hand, Barnes & Noble reported a 10.38% loss in Nook-related revenue during the last quarter, while its tablet’s Web usage increased significantly. With both devices having substantial user bases, this data indicates Nook users having very different usage habits as compared to Kindle Fire owners.

Blackberry Web Usage Drops 25% From Last Year (Chitika)
According to Chitika, Apple’s success with both the iPhone and iPad have led its devices to command a staggering 63% of all mobile traffic, up nearly 35% from slightly under year ago. RIM’s devices, despite the launch of the company’s long-developed BlackBerry Playbook tablet, control just over 1% of all mobile traffic after dropping almost 25% from last September. If RIM is to survive, it is either going to need to integrate its hardware and software to create a stunning, unique device, or change its business model to focus only on creating the hardware or software for smartphones.