BII MOBILE INSIGHTS: The Future Of Mobile Commerce Is Bright

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The State Of Mobile Commerce (Instant Shift)
Mobile phones are the most widely spread electronic devices on the planet. According to The International Telecommunication Union, in August 2012 there were about 7 billion mobile phones. This number exceeds the number of PCs by about 3.8 times. Here are a few trends in the industry:

The growth of mobile data traffic worldwide
Mobile advertising and marketing
Location-based services (LBS)
Applications
Virtual wallets
Mobile coupons and barcodes

Here are the top stats you should know:

Nearly all Generation Y consumers owned a mobile phone of some kind and 72 percent owned smartphones.
Over three-quarters of Americans age 43 and under now use a smartphone.
53 percent of American consumers use their smartphones to access search engines at least once a day.
Globally, 80 percent of consumers have used computers to access the Web within the previous seven days. Sixty percent used their mobile devices to do so.
The smartphone market is now larger than the PC market. Smartphones outsold PCs in the fourth quarter of 2010 101 million to 92 million.
Smartphones and tablet computers will increase mobile Web traffic by 26 times during the next four years.
86 percent of mobile Internet users use their mobile device while watching TV, with 37 percent of those browsing the Internet for non-related TV material.
The number of smartphone users worldwide is predicted to exceed 1 billion by 2014.
25 percent of U.S. mobile Web users only access the Web from their mobile phones.

Despite unstable economies in many countries, the mobile phone market remains one of the most promising in the telecommunications sector. Read >>

The Future Of Making Money In Mobile (Bill Gross and Business Insider)
IdeaLab and UberMedia founder Bill Gross gave a presentation at Business Insider's IGNITION Mobile conference last week on the monetary possibilities upcoming in mobile, calling it A Perfect Storm Of Opportunity. He shows how the rise of mobile computing opens a huge opportunity for companies looking to monetize. Click here or on SlideShare for the full presentation. Read >>

Mobile Sales Enablement For The Enterprise (Mutual Mobile)
Mobile is reinventing how companies go to market. At a time when buyers have never been better informed, or more thorough in their pursuit, mobile is providing new methods to differentiate one's company from the competition, and deliver exactly what the buyer needs. Some 70 percent of sales organizations using tablets are already realizing a positive return on their investment. Learn how this shift can drive revenue growth, differentiate the buying experience, and solve some major productivity problems for Sales Executives, Marketing, and Sales Operations. Read >>

Mobile Advertising Biggest Growth Opportunity For Marin Software (Seeking Alpha)
Last week, Marin Software completed its oversubscribed IPO at a much higher valuation than expected and with great enthusiasm from the market. Originally planning to sell 7 million shares at $11-13, it ended up selling 7.5 million shares around $14 and closed at $16 for the day after hitting an intraday high of $19.95. The $16 closing price gives the company a market cap of around $450 million. Read >>

Two-Year Contracts Be damned: T-Mobile Launches Flexible Pricing (TNW)
Following rumors that T-Mobile would soon get rid of carrier contracts, the company has revealed new plans which eliminate two-year contracts altogether. With these new plans, T-Mobile claims to offer unlimited text, talk and Web, starting at $50 per month. Unfortunately, these plans actually range from $50 to $110 in cost, varying based on how much you like having 4G Internet access. The $50 plan includes just 500 MB of 4G data, after which you’ll enjoy 2G speeds (which will get you nowhere on many modern sites and services). Read >>

iPhone Security Flaws Undermine Trust In Apple's Mobile Payment Ambitions (Forbes)
If your iPhone is your iWallet and these kinds of vulnerabilities (like the lock screen security flaw) pop up with the regularity that they have so far for Apple, that's going to be a big problem. So if Apple’s next iPhone does indeed have biometric fingerprint authentication linked to mobile payment capabilities, that could be a big win for a company that needs one. Read >>

Apple Snags Indoor GPS Startup (WSJ)
Apple has acquired indoor GPS company WifiSLAM, a sign that the war over indoor mobile location services is heating up. Apple paid around $20 million for the Silicon Valley-based company, according to a person familiar with the matter who said the deal closed recently. The two-year-old startup has developed ways for mobile apps to detect a phone user’s location in a building using Wi-Fi signals. It has been offering the technology to application developers for indoor mapping and new types of retail and social networking apps. The move comes as Apple continues to build its arsenal against Google in mapping. Read >>

Tips For Gamifying Your App (CodeName One)
Mobile apps are in fierce competition these days. There are over one million apps available in the different marketplaces. We know what Gamification is, let's define it in the context of a mobile app. The idea here is to get the user in the engagement loop.

Create engagement opportunities for the user
Encouraging your users to invest time through achievements
Guide users about the value they can receive
Getting rid of clutter via smart unlocking
Reward your key users

The more iterations of this loop, the better the app engagement will be. Read >>

How The Mobile Web Is Changing Everything (piJnz)
43 Americans convert to a smartphone every minute. This infographic highlights some of the ways that the mobile Web is rapidly changing the way consumers interact with the Web. Read >>

mobile changing the way we interact with the web