We have approximately 4 billion cell phones in the world today. Cell phones are especially popular in the emerging markets. In India, cell phone is a part and parcel of life from the poorest to the riches. From the various ranges that we have in cell phones, smart phones are pretty popular in well to do families. Smart phones provide more personalized experience for the users. Cell phones are not limited to calling and receiving calls but with a bundle of other activities .This becomes more handy with the wide range of mobile apps in the market. Geo locations base services, games, videos are the common frontiers.
What led to this growth?
The mobile services, browsers, cellular networks, advanced handsets and engaging user experience, mobile applications are key factor to the growth of mobile internet. Popularity of the 3G networks and handsets is expected to increase by 57% by the end of this year.
Mobile Internet Adoption Growth
Since 2007 to mid 2009, adoption of mobile usage has grown from 11% to 17%.It nearly represents 40 million users.
Organizations focusing on the user engagements and higher customer satisfaction is taking a closer look at the user experience of such devices.
Popular Smart Phone Options
Users who are net savvy are very likely to buy a phone with very good browsing experience such as iPhones, Nokia N series , Android, Blackberry and other smart phones.
Experience
Smart phones offer a better experience over other phones.
As per the North American mobile and telecom survey , on a sample size of 4599 adult users. These are the following top 3 user destinations:
- Social networking sites
- Youtube videos
- Games
- location based services
Around 4% of the smart phone users have downloaded at least one social networking app to their cell phones. One reason being that apps are more focused and they provide the exact and key tasks and information for the users unlike the PC experience.
It is observed that satisfactory experience leads to more user engagement. Around 41% of the users, who were satisfied used the social networking apps, multiple times in a day. Where as poor product experience led to the drop in accessdaily usage to 11%.
Applications
People buying the iphones and iPads are downloading free and paid apps like never before. The apps also provide the contextual information such as the users location and information related to the same. Couple of popular apps ,such as Foursquare, Gowalla, brightlight are becoming very popular.Around 35% of the North American population browses the mobile web. Around 61% of the users send or receive SMS daily,and 51% exchange emails using smart phones.
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For the companies, it provides a way to provide better-target their ads. Also ,it is possible to target better demographics. Based on the location of the users, companies can target their deals and coupons.
In a sample size of 30,000 plus ,around 33% of users recalled the ads.Around 18% visited internet or mobile internet.35% of the users recalled that they have seen mobile ads.Teenagers are more likely to take some actions on the ads.
From the Designer’s perspective, I guess we need to be ready and updated with the latest trends and technology and be abreast with the mobile trends.
References:
- Forrester Research
- Youtube
- Nielsen Research
