Social Networking Ranks As Fastest-Growing Mobile Content Category

­A new comScore report has found that social networking led as the top-gaining category for both application and browser access, confirming the surging popularity of this service on mobile devices. The study also found that accessing Bank Accounts was one of the fastest-gaining categories via both app and browser, as the convenience of mobile banking continues to appeal to a growing number of consumers.

"With mobile media consumption on the rise, the discussion of how consumers are accessing content -- whether it is via application, browser or both -- continues to be an important factor for companies looking to invest further in their mobile brands," said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. "Although application access is clearly on the rise, with several categories more than doubling their audience via this method, content consumption via browser continues to be the most popular method for Americans to access mobile media."

Smartphone Users Post Triple-Digit Growth in App and Browser Access

In terms of penetration, 78 percent of smartphone users accessed their browser in April 2010, while 80 percent of smartphone users accessed applications. In comparison, just 19 percent of feature phone users accessed their browser, with 17 percent accessing applications. Although smartphone users are driving growth in browser (up 111 percent in the past year) and application (up 112 percent) access, feature phone users still make up nearly half of all users accessing mobile browsers and apps.

"Although growth in application usage on smartphones continues to grab the spotlight in the mobile market, the audience using their mobile browser remains larger and is growing just as quickly," added Donovan. "Brands need to remember to take into consideration the user experience across both channels when building their mobile strategies."

Social Networking App Audience More Than Triples in Past Year

In April 2010, 69.6 million mobile users accessed an application on their phone, an increase of 28 percent from the previous year. Several application categories experienced triple-digit growth in the past year, emphasizing the increasing popularity of this method as a form of mobile content access. Social Networking experienced the strongest growth in app access, increasing 240 percent to 14.5 million users. Accessing News apps followed, growing 124 percent to 9.3 million users, while Sports Information apps experienced a 113-percent surge to nearly 7.7 million users. Bank Accounts apps also more than doubled their audience, growing to nearly 5 million users in April.

More Americans Still Use their Browser versus Applications

Nearly 73 million mobile users accessed their browser in April, an increase of 31 percent from the previous year. Mirroring application category growth, Social Networking ranked as the fastest-growing category accessed via browser, growing 90 percent from the previous year to reach almost 30 million users, followed by Bank Accounts (69 percent to 13.2 million users). Online Retail sites also experienced a significant increase in audience usage via browser, increasing 47 percent to 7.3 million users, as Americans continued to show adoption of the mobile retail channel.

Donovan continued, "Social networking is by far the fastest-growing mobile activity right now. With 20 percent of mobile users now accessing social networking sites via their phone, we expect to see both application and browser usage continuing to drive future consumption of social media."

Smartphone and Feature Phone Browser and Application Usage

*comScore defines smartphones as a mobile device with the following operating systems: RIM, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Palm, Symbian

Fastest-Growing Content Categories via Application Access

Fastest-Growing Content Categories via Browser Access

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Don't miss out on the fastest growing market. Browser access to mobile sites/services still on the rise and bigger than the apps market.

The BBC iPlayer website viewed on an iPhone. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Features

London is to become the centre of a fightback by the world's biggest mobile phone networks, which together serve more than four billion customers, against the growing power of Apple and Google.

The capital will be the location for the headquarters of a new business that will create a single global market for downloadable mobile phone applications, allowing the mobile phone companies to cash in on the growing craze for "apps".

By the end of the year, the mobile phone companies could be in a position to present application developers with a single standard that will operate across everything from BlackBerry devices to mass market Samsung and LG handsets.

Mobile phone apps have proved a huge hit with consumers, with more than 3bn downloaded by iPhone users in just 18 months. But while they are creating a dramatic increase in traffic for mobile phone networks, they are not bringing any significant increase in revenues.

Apple splits revenues from paid-for apps with the programme's developer, not the network. The situation is likely to get worse as Apple updates the iPhone in the summer so that more than one app can run at a time, further increasing its appetite for network capacity.

While the iPhone is likely to remain an expensive gadget aimed at high-end users, making it a niche product – albeit a very lucrative one for Apple – there is the potentially much larger threat from the growing adoption of Google's Android platform. Later this year handsets from the likes of HTC and ZTE, which use the Google software and are aimed at the mass market, will start appearing. Already in the UK, according to recent research, almost one in every five smartphones now sold uses Android and some carriers reckon there will be more Android devices than iPhones within a year.

Google has made it plain it wants to co-operate with the networks on Android but while it is understood to be sharing a portion of mobile advertising revenues generated through the phones with mobile operators, Google does not share revenue generated by apps.

The mobile phone companies were galvanised into action by the appearance of Google's own-branded mobile phone, the Nexus One, at the start of the year. It is the first in what the search engine giant hopes will be a portfolio of mobile phones over which it has complete control.

At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February a group of more than a dozen mobile phone companies including O2, Vodafone and Orange announced their intention to form the Wholesale Applications Community, which would work on a single platform for downloadable apps that would work across all their networks and across a wide range of phones.

Since then, WAC has attracted 40 members and this week the operators will announce that it is to be based in London, where it will merge with another industry body called the Open Mobile Terminal Platform (OMTP). Backed by nine operators including AT&T, Orange and Telecom Italia, Nokia and Ericsson, OMTP developed the nascent Bondi open apps standard, which is used in the recently announced Samsung Wave handset.A chairman is currently being sought for WAC, whose interim chief executive is head of the OMTP Tim Raby, and the first board meeting of the new organisation is expected in July.

Its first task will be to pick a technology platform from the numerous competing open standards, including Bondi. It is understood to have chosen to use the open platform currently under construction by the Joint Innovation Lab (JIL) partnership between Vodafone, Verizon Wireless of the US, Softbank in Japan and China Mobile, the world's largest mobile phone network.

It is also supported by LG, Samsung, Sharp and most crucially Research In Motion, maker of the Blackberry email device and bitter rival of both Apple and Android. Also involved in the process is the LiMo Foundation, which has been creating an open source mobile phone operating system based on Linux with the backing of partners including Motorola, NEC and NTT DoCoMo. Its software is inside Samsung's H1 and M1 handsets which Vodafone has used as the flagship devices for its 360 suite of social networking services. There is speculation that Vodafone 360 could be rolled into the wider WAC effort.

Unity at last. But will it last and what are the terms for the developers? The entire reason for WAC is to get a slice of the pie that Apple has locked the MNOs our from in its model with the AppStore. All I can say is: "I want 70%!". If WAC leaves that share to the developer community they might have a chance. And that is of course if they can deliver a develop-once-deploy-everywhere solution on this side of Christmas.

HP’s acquisition of Palm – Did they buy a Donkey that they want to market as a Race horse?

 
Much has been said and written about HP's purchase of Palm. On the other hand we believe that this is one purchase that actually raises more questions than answers. Strand Consult has been following this market for the past 15 years, and we can see that many of the articles that have been written about this purchase are based on the American market viewpoint - a market which only accounts for approximately 7% of the global mobile market. Very few people are viewing HP's purchase from a global perspective.

We have compiled a list that summarises our thoughts regarding this acquisition. We sincerely believe that financial analysts around the world should view HP's purchase in the light of these issues listed below. A 1.2 billion USD purchase is a big deal - especially when you consider what HP is getting. We would like to draw your attention to the following points:

1.  Palm is only a brand name in the USA. Outside the USA Palm is totally unknown as a phone manufacturer.
2.  Palm has no distribution in the mobile world and few and limited relationships with operators around the world.
3.  Palm has limited mobile experience - they have been trying to enter the industry since 2002.
4.  HP also has limited experience in the mobile industry - they have been trying without success.
5.  HP has limited distribution in the mobile world and limited experience in the mobile value chain - they have tried several times but without success.
6.  Even Compaq's iPAQ was not a Compaq product, but a product created by a reference design company in Seattle and a then unknown company in Taiwan, which we now know as HTC. The iPAQ was a Microsoft brainchild that they got Compaq to market and sell, because Microsoft wanted to enter the PDA market. This was the turning point for HTC - a close collaboration with Microsoft, resulting in HTC becoming the worldwide brand it is today.
7.  Perhaps HP has purchased an OS, but the value of an OS is rather limited in itself, the important issue is distribution of your OS and how many devices you can get your OS running on. There are a great many OSs in the mobile world - in fact there are far more smartphone OSs than most people realise.
8.  Take for example Apple, they can only put their OS into the phones they sell themselves - giving Apple limited distribution.
9.  Apple's sales have grown far less than the growth of their distribution power (operator agreements).
10.  Both Google Android and Microsoft have to approach mobile phone manufacturers the whole time to convince them to use their OS on each new device.
11.  If you look at who is most successful in terms of getting their OS onto as many devices from the most manufacturers, it is actually currently Microsoft. Measured on the number of different models running their OS, Microsoft has clearly achieved better results than Google Android.
12.  Being on as many devices as possible is very important, helping to increase the likelihood of being on a successful model that ships enormous numbers of units.
13.  When we examine how devices subsequently sell, we can see that Nokia are selling the most. Nokia has a higher Smartphone market share than their overall mobile phone market share and Nokia's Smartphone sales are growing significantly more than Apple's.
14.  Both Nokia with 550 million phones sold and Samsung with 220 million sold phones can decide themselves which OS they want in their devices. This means that both Nokia (Symbian) and Samsung (Bada) can replace their old OS (Series 30, 40, EMP, etc.) and put Symbian and Bada in their phones. A good example of this is Nokia's C5, which two years ago would have been a Series 40 phone for 120 Euros, but is now a Symbian phone for 120 Euros.
15.  The R&D costs of developing an OS decreases, as the sales volume of the OS increases.
16.  In a world where volume is important HP has not much to offer - their PC volume does not give HP any significant advantage regarding manufacturing mobile phones.
17.  There is no doubt that Palms WebOS is a good OS. But why should developers develop services for the US market alone, and where are the tools and access to different API's to make it attractive to develop for the OS?
18.  The big question is whether HP has plans to take Palms developer support on board and how they plan to drive it forward?
19.  HP is strong in the enterprise market, but do they have a size that enables them to tell their customers that they must rely on the Palm platform, rather than on Microsoft's WM? We believe that HP will inevitably have to support Microsoft WM in the Enterprise market.
20.  WEB OS is and will remain a niche OS, and what HP is buying is a hardware brand that is known in the US. On the other hand it appears it will cost a lot of money to further develop WEB OS. So maybe HP will use the hardware brand and then choose to go the Android and/or Microsoft way? If that is their plan, then 1.2 billion USD is a high price.

The biggest question is whether HP in the short term can create a growth in their share value, so that they can justify the investment in Palm? In the long term, the investment must create revenue and profit. We believe that it will be tough for HP to create enough revenue and profit to justify their purchase of Palm.

We could easily make the above list much longer. From where I'm sitting it looks to me as if HP has looked at the value that iPhone has created for Apple's shareholders and said “hey, we need a product like that too”. If you look at what they got for their 1.2billion USD, it appears as if HP purchased a donkey, and is hoping that they can pass it off as a racehorse to their shareholders. 

If you take two minutes to look at what we wrote about Palm & Handspring back in 2002: http://www.strandreports.com/sw482.asp, Nokia´s N-Gage launch: http://www.strandreports.com/sw566.asp,    what we wrote about Android in 2007: http://www.strandreports.com/sw2916.asp  and what we wrote about the iPhone in 2009:  http://www.strandreports.com/sw3501.asp  - you will agree that everything we predicted so far has been pretty much spot-on. Then again, we are by no means newcomers in the mobile industry.

 

Reading Strand Consult's thoughts on the fairly expensive purchase of Palm. It is, as we are used to, a frank and bold analysis where Strand is not fishing for popularity points. They speak their mind. Loud and clear. Basically they declare the HP purchase of Palm a disaster, maybe not exactly in those words, but you do not have to be a mind reader to see that message.

I do think the HP deal smells of "me too" logic, which is not logic. The "I want an iPhone success as well"-argument is not strong enough. Many contenders for Apple's current sweet spot seem to forget that Apple had gathered 100 million loyal customers and their credit cards via music sales before launching the iPhone. What they have done over a large number of years is to build an entire eco-system around digital entertainment and communication. Unless you buy Apple it is hard to find a quick fix for that. It takes hard work, luck and serious distribution power.

Unfortunately it has little to do with how good your stuff is. Palm's WebOS might be the best OS out there. But it is not out there on every phone. Beyond the US few consumers would even know what Palm is. Except for the tree with the nut then.

This is and old post from November last year, but still to the point. The key take away is as great as it is simple. Location is the bridge from social networking to real social activity. With location added in a smart way social networks, games and other apps will reach their full potential. When we can float over to real social interaction from the social network of choice the value of that social network will multiply. That is if you prefer interaction with real humans over screens. Most of us do.

Carrier CEOs voicing usage-based pricing are abundant these days. Implemented the wrong way with a very linear model this could be a serious spanner in the works for the mobile internet. Flat rate data was a main driver to make it take off in the first place. I don't think this young market (the mobile internet one) can take such a hit. Tread carefully. Keep flat rate packages with a hi-lo user pricing in two brackets only. Anything else will be dangerous, and you know it!

Stumbled upon this site and have spent some time on it already. Great to find one source on how to get stuff done and be creative. Great tool to beat procrastination into oblivion. Unless you spend too much time on the site though. Don't miss Seth Godin's video on the Lizard Brain or what it's really about - how to ship. Over and over again. That's what you should do for a living. It is not a about being creative. It's about shipping the ideas. Get going on the 99% in your life!

Det går inte ihop, Muller!

Publicerad: 2 februari 2010, 06.57. Senast ändrad: 2 februari 2010, 09.15

Spykers vd Victor Muller vill ta kontroll över Saab med ett eget kapital på 5 miljarder kronor genom att lägga in en egen insats på noll kronor. Spyker är samtidigt konkursfärdigt och dignar under 580 miljoner kronor i sms-liknande lån från en utpekad maffiafamilj. Det stinker allt mer om Saab-affären.

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Att Spyker räddar Saab känns lika vettigt som att bärga en oljetanker med ett metspö. Det är oklart vad Spyker egentligen bidrar med. En sak är klar: Det är inte pengar. Här är tre stora frågetecken:

1: Köpeskillingen

Om affären går i lås kommer Victor Muller att äga 38 procent i Spyker, som i sin tur tar över hela Saab. Saab har ett eget kapital på 5 miljarder kronor, mestadels i form av lån från GM. Dessutom är en kassa på 1 miljard och 4 miljarder i EIB-lån på väg in. Köpeskillingen är 540 miljoner kronor, varav 365 miljoner ska betalas direkt och resten, 175 miljoner, den 15 juli. Det är dessa pengar som Victor Muller saknar. De övriga två tredjedelarna finansieras genom ett lån från Victor Muller på drygt 180 miljoner till Spyker, pengar som han dock själv har lånat sig till. Dessutom ska Spyker ge ut nytrycka aktier till hedgefonden GEM. Men det är dyrt. Till nuvarande börskurs kommer GEM därefter att bli ägare till 25 procent av bolaget, enligt SvD Näringslivs beräkningar.

2: Spykers skuldkris

Victor Mullers andra insats i Saab-affären är att lösa ut de lån som Spyker har hos huvudägarna familjen Antonov och deras banker, sammanlagt 580 miljoner kronor. Dessa lån har Spyker tagit upp i stor skala till skyhöga räntor och med kort löptid, ungefär som sms-lån. Bara under första halvåret ifjol togs fem nya lån på nära 200 miljoner kronor med räntor på 10 och 11 procent. Flera av lånen har redan förfallit. Den 18 december ifjol löpte två lån på 76 miljoner ut, ytterligare 67 miljoner skulle vara betalt den 25 januari. Som säkerheter har Spyker enligt årsredovisningen lämnat hela familjesilvret; alltifrån inventarier till aktier i samtliga dotterbolag och fabriksfastigheten. Även om Saab-affären blir av kommer Spyker att ha skuldberget kvar, lånen övergår bara till Victor Muller och hans hemliga finansiärer. Dessutom till samma villkor som tidigare, alltså med samma höga ränta. Hur Spyker ska komma ur denna låneknipa är oklart. Det ligger nära till hands att misstänka att Saabs kassa lockar.

3: Familjen Antonovs gyllene aktie

Mullers tredje insats är utköpet av Antonov-gruppen. Av ovanstående framgår att familjen Antonov när som helst kan försätta Spyker i konkurs. Att de bara skulle acceptera att pressas ut är inte troligt. Det talar för att de är kvar i bakgrunden. Isåfall har de i allra högsta grad kvar makten över bolaget. Deras förhandlingsposition gentemot Victor Muller torde vara fantastisk. Förutom lånen har de kontrollerat en så kallad prioriterad aktie, en gyllene aktie, som ger rätt till extra makt. Det gör att de borde kunna begära en saftig premie för sina Spykeraktier, betydligt mer än de 170 till 180 miljoner som börskursen indikerar.

Återigen gör Victor Muller affären med lån. Totalt pytsar han in närmare 1 miljard av andras pengar. För detta får han aktier som på pappret, mätt som andel av Saabs kapital, är värda mellan 1,5 och 2 miljarder. Det är något rejält som inte stämmer i Saab-affären.

Andreas Cervenka

andreas.cervenka@svd.se

Hmm...detta är ett exempel på hur jag inte skulle driva ett företag. Lånta pengar i flera steg känns inte så transparent. Och kanske inte hållbart. Men jag hoppas, för SAAB som varumärke tror jag är starkt och något borde gå att göra med det. Fast kanske med pengar som finns idag.

Foursquare’s new frontier isn’t just newspapers, but media companies as a whole. Case in point: Bravo and Foursquare have entered into a must-see TV relationship integrating show personalities and their city tips, as well as a Bravo badges, into the game experience.

The New York Times Bits blog reports that the partnership officially premieres tomorrow, with Bravo offering badges and prizes to viewers that visit and check-in at upwards of 500 Bravo-tagged locations.

We confirmed the relationship with Foursquare Co-Founder Dennis Crowley who tells us that this partnership is actually just the first of many more media deals to come. In fact, Crowley hints that even more television networks will get in on the checkin gameplay in the near future.

The genius behind the Bravo deal is that, on top of introducing a plethora of new Bravo-themed badges, the cable TV network — much like Metro News — is turning the personalities behind their hit reality TV shows — think The Millionaire Matchmaker, Top Chef, The Real Housewives, Top Chef Masters, and Shear Genius — into content creators. The reality show celebrities will share their tips and to-dos, essentially serving as curators of city-specific information that fans can follow and practice in real life.

Of course Bravo is going to put the full power of their network behind the partnership, promoting Bravo’s Foursquare hooks in TV spots. The NBC-owned cable network also plans to use Foursquare () for sweepstakes, awards, and other viewer incentives. They’ll even offer Foursquare tie-ins to Bravo advertisers, which will likely come in the form of coupons for viewers to cash in at the advertisers’ venues.

Ellen Stone, Bravo’s senior vice president of marketing, told the New York Times that:

“We really want to tap into the power of Foursquare by engaging their audiences and bringing our Bravo viewers these unique experiences on a national level … We saw the Foursquare phenomenon taking off and we wanted to go along with them as they shoot into the mainstream … Our audiences is always looking for new and unique engagements and this is perfect for them.”

In the grander scheme of things, Crowley sees Bravo as an important partner that will help them reach a more mainstream audience. He says the company’s ultimate goal is “to make checkins synonymous with Foursquare. Everyone is doing check-ins and we’re not going to win that word. What we think we can offer is the best reason to check-in.”

As everyone from Google () to Yelp () attempts to emulate Foursquare’s winning location formula, the recent deals with Harvard, BART, Metro News, and now Bravo are essentially wisely arranged barters for your checkins. Nicely done Foursquare.

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Are you seeing the value in location, mobile and media content creation yet? This is very interesting start. Well done Forsquare and Bravo!

Mobile data plans have started to evolve. U.S. mobile operators, under pressure from exploding traffic volume in their networks and grappling with network congestion, have recently announced new service pricing for voice and data.

Though it is still unclear what the net effect of the new pricing will be on subscribers, the new plans set an important departure in the approach to voice versus data service plans. Subscribers may be able to get cheaper voice, but data pricing shows no comparable decrease.

More importantly, operators have started to require that subscribers have a data plan with some device types--mostly smartphones. Mobile operators seem to acknowledge that they can offer a better deal to their subscribers for voice services, which are substantially more profitable (with the exception of SMS, which on a per-bit basis may give an even better return than voice), but they have chosen not to extend this change to mobile data plans.

Why didn't data prices go down? Two reasons may explain the new approach to data. Mobile operators want data to become an integral part of subscribers' service plans. They are willing to charge less for voice, as long as subscribers pay on average more for data. This reflects a more balanced approach in splitting revenues between voice and data--with operators less willing to have voice subsidize data services. As data services become more mature and widely adopted, this is an approach that is no longer sustainable.

The second reason is that mobile operators cannot afford to lower data plans, as they may lead to a downward spiral in ARPU, at a time when they need to deal with an unprecedented growth in individual user traffic.

Initially the bulk of the growth in data traffic was generated by iPhone users, who now use more than 500 MB per month. With the introduction of new devices including Android-based smartphones and the higher number of applications, mobile data is rapidly becoming a mainstream consumer service. In the U.S., smartphones now represent over 30 percent of shipments and the percentage is likely to go further up. Traffic generated by these devices is also quickly catching up with that from iPhones. In Russia, mobile WiMAX operator Yota sees over 1 GB per month data traffic from subscribers using their HTC smartphone. For laptops, this figure is a staggering 13 GB per month. A large--and rapidly growing--portion of this traffic is video. This is what worries operators worldwide: with email and Internet access, traffic growth is bound by the limited requirements of the application; with video or even audio content takes little effort for subscribers to enter in the realm of the GB/month.

Mobile operators are delighted to see that their subscribers love mobile data services--and that are willing to pay for them--but at which point does the growing popularity of data and video affect profitability of the mobile data? It does not take long, as a quick back-of-the-envelope calculation that compared delivery costs and revenues on a per-MB basis.

The revenues per MB can be computed as a function of the monthly fees, for different levels of traffic. Revenues can be compared to the delivery cost per MB, which we estimate at $0.015 for HSPA, $0.005 for LTE and $0.003 for WiMAX on the basis of our analysis of mobile operator and vendor data. The delivery cost per MB depends on many variables that are specific to different operators--and in particular on the network utilization level--and therefore are subject to variability. Our values are therefore only indicative and on the low end in comparison with other estimates we have come across. It has to be kept in mind that these estimates do not include costs such as customer acquisition and support, or network core operations, which are shared with voice.

At the current average traffic levels of 500 MB/month, revenues per MB outstrip delivery costs for HSPA, LTE and WiMAX, for ARPUs starting at $20 per month. As traffic grows, however, the costs per MB rapidly exceed the revenues, especially when charging subscribers low fees. At a 50 percent CAGR, the 500 MB per month will reach 2.5 GB per month in five years. At $20 per month, for instance, mobile operators operate at a loss for subscribers using more than 1 GB per month in an HSPA network, or for subscribers using more than 5 GB per month in an LTE network. At 10 GB per month, data subscribers do not generate any net benefit for mobile operators with HSPA. With LTE or WiMAX, revenues from 10 GB subscribers at best reach the delivery cost...Continued

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Interesting and well structured discussion on mobile broadband realities. Consumers want flat fees and unlimited use. Operators have a delivery cost per MB whether they like it or not. Technology needs to evolve and make data delivery less costly in wireless networks. Introducing variable pricing for mobile data is not really an option. Because in the end the consumer is always right.

Nice visualisation of facts from Akamai. It really helps to see data in a picture this way. Great source of data to follow as well.