About half of the 850 million users of Facebook access the network through their mobile phones.

This has naturally made them want to start monetising this medium – by introducing Facebook Mobile ads. It is believed that they may introduce this feature next month itself, so that it would be functional before they go public, which is expected to happen in May.

It is actually quite surprising that Facebook has not already started to monetise mobile. It is very likely that future investors would question the reasoning behind this failure to make use of the opportunity to monetise what is one of the most popular apps.

Advertiser Challenges

Generating good mobile ads is a rather tricky task, compared to advertising on desktop computers, as the screen space available is much less. Also, users are likely to be interested only in relevant ads when they are on the go. Ads would need to be short and catchy. The use of graphics would also be tricky as image sizes are likely to be smaller in mobile ads.

Business Benefits

Businesses are likely to jump at the opportunity to grow their mobile user base and make use of sponsored stories to get more brand recognition and potential business via trusted referrals. Similarly, localised ads on mobile could see tremendous uptake by local businesses such as restaurants, hotels and stores.

The Biggest Risk – Users

The biggest challenge for Facebook, though, will be to lure more users to their mobile site and apps via better location features and to keep these users happy without getting them upset about too much advertising in such an intimate medium – especially in the wake of the IPO announcement that has made so many acutely aware of Facebook’s billions.

According to reports from Dell Inc. the value of purchases made by people through their mobile phones has now exceeded the average order value of purchases being made by users online.

Dell Inc. launched their complete mobile store applications for Android devices and iPhones some time ago and they have found that the average amount being spent on purchases through mobile is 25% higher than it is for online purchases.

The fastest selling item, the Inspiron 15R laptop is the most popular model for both mobile as well as online sales. This laptop ranges in price from $550 to $800, showing that users are not unwilling to make high value purchases from their mobile phones.

Brandon McGee, Director of Global Mobile at Dell says, “From a download and revenue perspective, the Android app is performing extremely well and reaching its goals. The iPhone app is performing twice as well as Android.”

In order to further strengthen mobile online sales, Dell suggests that in order to develop a successful mobile commerce site entrepreneurs should offer a secure site with prominently displayed lock icons on check out buttons, have a clean and easy to use interface that contains all technical and other specifications about the product being sold and also includes user reviews and provide tools to help users select products, such as the Compare feature and the Shop Assist tool used by Dell.

Promoting the mobile commerce site on popular networks such as Facebook, Twitter and on third party blogs and even via email has proved to be very helpful to Dell.

Success levels of these apps have been high enough to warrant Dell to invest in tablet apps, which are likely to be launched soon in order to further enhance their mobile commerce offering.

According to this report, the list is similar to the one they had released last year. However, there has been a significant increase in the number of unique visitors to most of the top sites.

It is no surprise that search, social networking and video remain at the top of the reasons for mobile browsing with Google, Facebook and YouTube scoring the top three rankings respectively.

The world’s 10 most popular mobile websites are:

1. google.com
2. facebook.com
3. youtube.com
4. vkontakte.ru
5. odnoklassniki.ru
6. yandex.ru
7. wikipedia.org
8. my.opera.com
9. yahoo.com
10. twitter.com

The report has compared the findings between November 2011 and November 2010. Apart from seeing rapid growth in Asia, Opera Mini has also found a substantial increase in mobile Web usage in Latin America, Africa and South East Asia.

The very first thing users will notice about the Facebook app is that it looks and functions a lot more like the website. Notifications are immediately visible and layers are used to provide instant views of friend requests, messages and notifications.

Facebook’s old Android app was notoriously slow, had multiple screens each of which took long to load even for simple functions and did not have a very intuitive interface. Even something as fundamental as viewing pictures and commenting on them was hidden and required users to know exactly where to touch to show the comment option.

It is now much quicker and easier for users to share photos, and messages as well as to navigate. According to a post on the Facebook blog, with this new app, photos and albums will be twice as fast as before. It will also be easier for users to edit their captions and view comments, both of which were tricky features to use in the old app.

Messages and notifications will now be placed at the top of the page, so users will be able to access them and respond tot hem without leaving the page.

Similarly, a new menu button on the top left corner of the app drops down a menu that enables users to access their news feeds, groups, games and apps with a single click, instead of having to leave the news stream and then go to the main menu.

These new features are for Android 1.8 and require Android 1.5 or later versions. The app continues to be available for free on the Android Market and still does not feature any Facebook ads.

Mobile Ads En Route?

Given that over 350 million active users (43% of Facebook’s total user base) currently access Facebook through their mobile devices, the platform is extremely important for the social network. It is no wonder then, that they would strive to make the user experience as good as it is on desktops.

It will also be no surprise when they do start monetising the medium and launch a mobile advertising service.

Marketing professionals and retailers are now putting a lot more effort into their mobile marketing campaigns. This is obviously because they have realised that mobile marketing is starting to pay rich dividends.

Analysts at Juniper have found that the latest techniques and tools available for mobile marketing are cost effective and at the same time they influence the shopper very positively. The availability of Near Field Communication technique for marketing and other tools such as mobile coupons have also improved the scope of mobile marketing to a large extent.

Mobile retail marketing comprises largely of mobile coupons, which dominate the market with over 50% share and are likely to grow to 75% of the total market by 2012, mobile smart posters, which currently account for less than 1% of the total market and mobile advertising, which will account for the rest.

Due to these and other developments, the mobile retail sector is set to grow up to $15 billion worldwide by 2012. This is an increase of 50% over and above the figures for 2011. The easy availability of gadgets such as smartphones and tablets will greatly contributed to this growth. An earlier report had predicted that revenue from the mobile NFC market would reach $50 billion by 2014.

Technological developments have proven to be good for both the retailer as well as the shopper. While retailers now have more ways of reaching their target audience, the shopper is also equipped with more access to information about the products available as well as the pricing, allowing them to take the right decision when purchasing a product.

Growth of mobile retail spend is faster in North America and Western Europe than in the Far East and China. The mobile retail opportunity, split among the 8 key regions globally in 2012 is as follows:

Global telecom technology and service provider, Ericsson has predicted in its latest Traffic and Market Data Report that the number of mobile broadband subscriptions will rise to an absurd-sounding 5 billion+ by 2016.

Though the number of such mobile broadband subscriptions was earlier expected to cross 1 billion by the end of this year, it is now being estimated that there will be about 900 million such subscriptions by the end of the year. The growth forecasts for 2016 are built on an expected year-on-year growth rate of 60%.

Mobile data traffic is likely to double this year. This is mainly due to the proliferation and availability of new devices such as smartphones and tablets. Smartphone traffic alone is expected to triple this year.

According to the report, users living on less than 1% of the earth’s land area (urban regions with over 1,000 people per square kilometer), will generate around 60% of this traffic. Video consumption on mobile devices is likely to be the main driver of this growth.

Ericsson also expects that the traffic generated by these advanced smartphones will rise 12-fold, and roughly equal mobile PC generated traffic by 2016.

Predicted growth of mobile data consumption (in PetaBytes)

The Offers app is free, of course, and users will be notified about all the offers available. Users will be able to make purchases within a few clicks and they will even be able to redeem the offers without the use of any paper forms, from certain selected outlets.

The app is based on four different screens.

• A “Featured” screen that’s the deal of the day.
• A daily deal notifier, which alerts you about the deals that are available.
• An archive screen, which shows the deals that the user has made use of or saved, as well as the deals that have expired.
• A screen for redeeming offers without printing them.

While the success of Groupon has led to the proliferation of several websites providing such deals, it is very likely that an app like this from Google will be more welcomed by users. The timing for the launch of this app is also commendable as it has come just at the time, when people would start their shopping for the upcoming holiday season.

Groupon already has a fairly successful Android app, with over 1 million downloads and an average rating of 4.6 stars out of 5. Google’s new Offers app has less than 50,000 downloads to date, with an average rating of 3.6 and quite a high percentage of pretty poor ratings

If Google expects to steal any market share from Groupon, it is obvious that they will have to do a lot more than just release a mobile app – for starters by getting more offers in all major US cities!

The study, based on data from AdMarvel Open Audience Network, uses information collected from users of the Opera Mini mobile web browser. It compares the habits of Android users with the habits of iPhone users, Windows Phone users, Blackberry users as well as users of other feature phones.

It was found that Windows Phone users were the most likely to visit email and communications sites – even more than Blackberry users. This would go on to suggest that similar to Blackberry device, Windows Phones were popular with the business community. These users were also most frequent visitors to news & information, politics and business & finance sites.

Users of the Android OS were likely to be the most educated. This suggestion is based on the fact that Android users are the largest group in the Education category, which includes websites for universities and general education.

iPhone users were found to be least likely to view music, video and media sites, whereas Android users were most likely to visit sites in that category.

It was also seen that Android users are the least likely to visit social networks from their browser – presumably preferring to use free apps to access the social networks.

Percentage of users exceeding the average use

The study takes into consideration various devices such as tablets, e-readers, and other portable connected devices. The study concentrated on user demographics, features of the devices being used and shipment details. Retailing strategies being used by the manufacturers and marketers as well as pricing tactics were also studied.

Mobiles, smartphones and tablets are expected to be the fastest growing devices in the near future. This assessment has been further strengthened by the recent announcement from Microsoft stating that their Windows 8 OS will be orientated towards mobiles and tablets. Microsoft have also said that their Office suite will add to the attraction of tablets within the enterprise space.

Analysts at Juniper estimate that the number of tablet devices being shipped out will touch 253 million by 2016. This is a huge jump compared to the number of such devices expected to ship this year, which is just around 55.2 million.

Juniper’s numbers match other forecasts by Gartner and DisplaySearch quite closely. Numbers for this year were forecast to be around 50 million, but have now been revised up a bit, which further reinforces these steep growth expectations.

It is also believed that by 2016, more than half the number of tablet devices will have Wi-Fi as well as cellular connections. At present, most of these devices only include Wi-Fi connectivity.

Currently, customers are required to have separate connections for their mobile phones and for the tablet. This situation is expected to change in due course and could also influence the growth in usage of tablets.

The search giant has been running trials of this app on Sprint phones and they are now ready to roll out the app to all Sprint Nexus S 4G phones with an over-the-air update.

So far, they have only tested the app with Citi, MasterCard, and First Data. However, now they are ready to add other partners including Visa, American Express and Discover, to this service. It is not yet known when these cards will become functional on Wallet, as technical details are being worked out.

Once users download the wallet app to their phone, they can use it to make payments through NFC technology instead of having to carry several credit cards.

This service is still in its infancy, as it works only on one Sprint phone, and is compatible with only a limited number of credit cards. Also, the number of terminals compatible with this technology is a very small percentage of the total number of terminals in use.

Google aims to be able to let users use this app for all credit cards, and is also working to make the feature compatible with several other handsets. They also hope to increase the number of terminals compatible with this technology in the near future.

While Google Wallet is compatible on the Sprint network, the other popular networks, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile USA, are working with several credit card companies to create their own digital wallet too.

According to him, marketing in a place like Asia is very different from marketing in the U.S. While the U.S. market is reasonably homogenous, there are a lot of differences across the Asian market.

Hence advertising in the U.S. is relatively easy, as the culture and values of the people there are similar.

On the other hand, the culture varies widely in the Asian region. Over 2,000 languages are spoken in this part of the world, and hence one has to keep all these factors in mind while preparing an ad campaign for this region.

He further explains that the arrival of mobile technology has brought about a common thread across these different cultures. Hence it is essential to make optimum use of this technology while marketing any product or service, as it can truly connect the consumers across different regions and cultures.

He says, “Start with consumers, start with categories, I see a lot of great work where people just don’t have the opportunity to use a kind of “vanilla” view and so they get into category-specific details, sharing some great use of creativity out there.”

If marketers keep these tips in mind, they are sure to be able to improve their campaign performance and will reap rich benefits in due course.

The study found that nearly 45% of users were using the mobile phone to access the internet as compared to about 31% in 2010 and only about 23% in 2009.

Expectedly, the highest rate of growth was seen in the 16-24 year olds age group. In 2009 33% of users in this age group were using the mobile internet, while 71% do so now. In contrast only about 8% of those above 65 years of age use mobile internet connections.

The survey also found that nearly 77% of households in the country now have an internet connection. Nearly half of the remaining 23% felt that they did not need an internet connection.

It was also revealed that the use of wifi hotspots in places such as restaurants malls etc. has gone up dramatically. There are over 3 million such hotspots in the country now.

About 4.9 million people or 13% now use this facility. This is a seven fold increase compared to 2007, and the figure has also doubled since last year. The figure of connects through this means is expected to reach 120 billion by 2015.

These findings suggest that in spite of the growing popularity of 3G services, free and paid-for wireless services continue to remain popular.

Findings from the study shed some interesting light on consumer mobile usage. For instance, a third of the total time spent by users on their mobile is at home. Also, content consumption patterns on the mobile Web are starting to mirror that of the PC. Connecting, searching and entertaining dominated mobile web usage

It was found that users spend about 38% of their mobile time to communicate and about half of that time for entertainment or search purposes. In contrast, only 7% of the mobile time is spent on shopping.

This 7% of mobile time that is spent on shopping is most important for advertisers, as it has been found that users are most likely to engage with ads on their mobile phone while they are in the process of shopping.

This finding seems logical, as it can be easily understood that ads might be perceived as a distraction when one is using the phone to communicate with others or even while conducting searches or using the phone for entertainment.

In contrast, when users shopping, they would naturally be interested in seeing what products or services are on offer, before finalising a deal. It was found that users are most likely to recall an ad they have seen while they were shopping. While about two-thirds of users had seen an ad while shopping more than half of them had clicked on the ad.

It has also been found that most users prefer to shop through a mobile browser rather than through an app. In contrast, connecting and communicating is most frequently done outside a browser.

For advertisers, this indicates a need to target messaging appropriately, according to the usage mode.

How to optimise mobile advertising by mode. Image courtesy of Yahoo!

This app helps users to organise a get together or events with their friends. When a user wants to know where his friends are, this new app makes it very easy for him to do so.

Users just have to invite their friends through this app, and when they agree to join, both sides will be able to see each others’ locations.

In order to use this app, the user has to sign up using his phone number. Then he can invite all his friends through his contact list and also tell them the reason for the invite.

At this time he can also specify the amount of time for which this invite will hold good. Once that time limit is up, the invite expires automatically and the location sharing stops automatically.

The friends receive a text message with all the details on their Windows Phone. Those who decide to join in will be visible along with their location on the map. The map can be extended or narrowed down to include a larger or smaller area as required.

All those who accept the invite will be able to see each others location. The participants can also update their status through messages. To see a particular person status update, one must click on the user tile of that person. To see the status of all participants, one must click on the People tab.

A person who wants to stop sharing his location has to tap ‘leave’ on the People tab. He can also send his friends a status message to indicate that he is leaving the group.

At present this app is available only on the Windows Phone in the U.S. but is likely to be added to other devices in the future.

This activity is likely to become very popular as it has been found that 73% of users engage in mobile social networking on a daily basis.

By 2016, the number of users accessing these facilities is set to cross 130 million. An increased use of this sector over the past wear and a half has already been noted following the launch of services such as front facing cameras on smartphones and other improvements on the technological side by major industry players.

The use of mVoIP has increased significantly in the market, especially in the developed countries because of the increased use of smartphones and easy to download apps.

As voice based services become more easily available in the market, it will be used more and more in services such as gaming and social networking according to the report.

Existing alliances between Facebook and mVoIP providers as well as the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft will further enhance this sector.

The report also forecasts that the increased access to 3G and 4G services will give a further boost to the development of voice based services.

Revenues for the voice based services are however likely to diminish over the next five years as many service providers will offer these services for free in order to get a hold of a larger market share.

These apps can be of great use to residents of the city as well as to tourists. Since the mobile apps are available to users at all times, it is a great way for people to make enquiries about the city and get up to date information even when they are on the go.

The ‘311 feature’ which is a built in app is very commonly used, according to Andy Sparks, UI and project and sales manager for eproximiti, a software development firm specializing in the health care industry and municipalities.

According to him since cameras and GPS facility are generally available in all smart phones, this app can be used to find out not only about events taking place in the city but also current details of graffiti information about potholes and bad roads, or fallen trees in some area and the like.

Earlier, information about such incidents could only be reported through phone calls and computers, but these apps on smart phones have simplified this process to a great extent. According to Andy Sparks, these apps can also be used to spread information about news initiatives being taken up in the region and increase citizen participation through increased awareness.

Some of the cities which have already introduced such local apps are Baltimore, New Orleans, Ottawa and Charlotte.

A well known mobile app called ‘Proximitips’ functions as a hyper-local social magazine, that not only provides news reviews and promotions but also has facilities for purchases and bookings.

This app can be used through street name city name or suburb. The app also allows users to interact with each other thus making the information more interesting and engaging.

Proximitips has been developed in London’s Tech City, and is available in throughout Europe covering 125 million places of interest.

It was found that during the second quarter of the year, total retail search volume has gone up by 27% compared to the figures during the same period last year.

The major part of this growth has come from the increase in mobile searches, which grew by 216% compared to the same period last year.

The search volume for online retailers has gone up by 21% compared to the 14% increase in search volumes for multi-channel retailers, who use the internet as well as stores.

International mobile searches are also on the rise. U.K. retailers being searched by consumers based overseas. There was an increase of 34% in this sector of search. On the other hand the number of U.K. based consumers making overseas searches grew by 76% during the second quarter of 2011.

London remains the core of online shopping in the U.K. registering 36% of all retail searches.

Wedding dresses, garden furniture and other DIY articles are high on the list of retail searches being carried out. Among electronic goods, the iPad 2 that was launched last March, and the iPhone 5 which is due to be released in September are reportedly the most searched items.

According to Peter Fitzgerald, retail director for Google, even though volumes dipped in April due tot eh warm weather as well as bank holidays, and then picked up again in May, the volumes of mobile search remained constant through out, due to the ‘always on’ nature of mobile users.

The number of smartphones sold worldwide in 2010 was 302 million. According to the prediction, 1 billion smartphones will be sold annually by the year 2016.

The prices of these handsets are set to fall gradually with time, and this is what will fuel the growth of smartphones. Economy model handsets, which cost below $150 (unsubsidised rate) are likely to be the most in demand, and this segment will account for a third of the total smartphones being shipped out.

Smartphone prices forecast for 2016

The competition between handset manufacturers and suppliers will also lead to these gadgets being available at very reasonable rates, further enhancing the demand for them.

The report also predicts that many users in the developed markets will be inclined to switch from feature phones to smartphones, but they would expect to pay the price of feature phones only.

On the other hand a low price point will be essential in the developing markets as well, because the consumers in general have a lower spending power and operator subsidies are also fewer.

The increased availability of open source operating systems such as Android along with falling costs of key components for manufacture will help lower the cost of smartphones.

The report also predicts that the demand for standard smartphones costing between $151 – $399 will remain intact, as also the demand for premium or high end phones that cost above $400. This demand will be fuelled by the increased availability of new technologies such as NFC, 3D and Biometrics.

These new high-end smartphones will also be capable of morphing into other devices such as Tablets and Notebooks.

The report indicates that total U.S. mobile ad spending is set to grow from the level of $790 million in 2010 to $4 billion by 2015. In addition the report also predicts that the mobile local ad spend will go up from $404 million in 2010 to $2.8 billion in 2015.

In effect this means that while local ad spend currently accounts for about 51% of the revenue, it is set to go up to about 70% by 2015.

Mobile local advertising is defined as that which targets users in specific locations or contains location-specific calls to action.

While mobile ad spend is likely to go up mainly due to the easier availability of smartphones and increased web usage, local ad spend is set to grow due to increased ability of mobile phones to be aware of location of the user.

This increased capability of mobiles, will not only lead to increased advertising by big brands but will also encourage the small and medium businesses to advertise on mobile, through display, search and SMS formats.

Local Advertising can be further divided into National-local and Local-local advertising.

National-local advertising is done by big brands and agencies, which target the local population of a given area.

On the other hand, local-local advertising is done by the small and medium sized businesses.

This local-local sector of the mobile advertising business is what is set to grow at a very fast pace thanks to the availability of facilities provided by features such as AdWords, Foursquare etc. This will eventually lead to the large growth of mobile ad spending.

The report forecasts that by the end of 2011, 1.8 billion people will use the mobile to make payments for purchases of various kinds. By 2015, this figure is expected to go up to 2.5 billion, which is a growth of 40%.

The sectors that would be responsible for a large part of this growth will be mobile ticketing for transport and entertainment. Other physical goods will also be available through mobile payments.

Among the popular digital goods that can be purchased through mobile payments, will be ringtones and games. The price of these goods would range from as little as a few cents to $20.

A large chunk of this growth is expected to come through China and India. China and the Far East will account for 29% of all users, while the Indian Subcontinent will account for 17% of the growth and will cross 400 million users.

Total revenues generated through mobile payments are expected to touch $400 billion by 2015. The Far East and China are expected to contribute about 25% of this share, while America will be the largest contributor with 35% share.

The players in the field of mobile payments will need to be up to date on the latest market trends, and offer users new opportunities in the form of personalised mobile coupons, loyalty schemes, and novel augmented reality offerings.

On the off-side to this good news, the report also warns of a high possibility of fraud occurring due to mobile payments. This is especially likely in case of PSMS and direct billing facilities. The participants of these schemes must pay attention to mobile security, in order to avoid such frauds.

The latest report released by Opera, on the state of the mobile Web, indicates that a very large amount of mobile Web traffic is now being generated in India. Among the most popular uses of the mobile Web is to access the popular social network, Facebook, and also to access online videos. Another popular use of the mobile Web in India is for online shopping and online classifieds.

Popularity of the social network Orkut has been declining. While it was once very popular in India as well as Brazil, it is now on a downward trend in India, although it continues to be popular in Brazil.

In contrast, Orkut’s main competitor, Facebook has gained immense popularity in India. Orkut’s loss could be due to a lack of innovation in recent times. Google, the parent company of Orkut, has just launched a new social network Google Plus, which may change the situation in due course of time.

The top 10 mobile sites in India, ranked according to unique users since May 2010 are:

1. google.com
2. facebook.com
3. youtube.com
4. vuclip.com
5. orkut.com
6. mobile2day.com
7. wikipedia.org
8. zedge.net
9. getjar.com
10. filestube.com

Jon von Tetzchner, co-founder of Opera Software, says, “We see India standing tall as a country in rapid development, with Internet-based knowledge at the forefront of that growth. Furthermore, the mobile Web in India has evolved as an important place to do business, as the proportion of people going shopping on the mobile shows.”

According to the report, for one year between May 2010 and May 2011, India was placed at the number three slot as far as Opera Mini users are concerned. Incidentally, Opera handles about 60-65% of the mobile Web traffic in India. During this period, the number of page views per user has also gone up from 390 to 430.

Latin America continues to show steady growth as well. Between May 2010 and May 2011, the number of unique users in this region went up by 535%, the number of page views went up by 1,556% and the data transferred during this period went up by 1,041%.

Apple acquired a feature called ‘Siri’ from voice recognition software provider, Nuance, last year. Siri is personal assistance software, with the added benefit of voice control.

Siri will function like a mobile search engine, and will take oral instructions from the user, through voice recognition technology.

When a voice command is issued to the iPhone 5, it will reportedly go through services such as Yelp, OpenTable and others to provide the required information or service to the user.

While voice recognition services and voice activated search have been around for some time, Siri will be the first mobile search service that can do more than just deliver search results. That in itself, could give search giant Google sleepless nights – this innovation by Apple could mean a considerable setback to their business.

It is, of course, a known fact that so far, voice-recognition-based services have faced several problems, such as distortion caused due to background noise and inability to handle even slight changes in voice modulation. However, it is bound to be only a matter of time before such obstacles are overcome. If Google intends to keep their place in the mobile search market, it would be essential for them to start working on this matter at the earliest.

Nielsen has also corroborated this information in the USA. According to them, the average amount of data being consumed by users is higher than ever before.

In particular, users of iPhones and Android based phones are consuming very high amounts of data.

The average smartphone user consumed 435 MB of data per month in the first quarter of 2011 as compared to only 230 MB per month in the first quarter of 2010. That is an increase of 89%.

The report further reveals that the top 10% of users are consuming 109% more data than they did last year, while the top 1% of users are consuming 155% more data than they did last year.

It is also of interest to note that those using Apple’s iOS consume an average of 492 MB per month, while Android users are consume an average of 582 MB per month.

In spite of this huge jump in data usage, the revenue generation of mobile operators continues to remain more or less static. This is because the cost of data consumed has gone down quite drastically from 14 cents per MB last year to the present 8 cents per MB.

A recent report had also pointed out a similar trend, wherein, the projected revenues of mobile operators are likely to reach $1 trillion by 2016, but their handling costs will go up at an even faster rate, thus leading to a financial disaster, if corrective steps are not taken soon.

While each operator will have to take individual decisions about what would best serve their purposes, it might boil down to them having to gradually discontinue unlimited data plans, which are very popular at present, and instead introduce usage based structured plans in the near future.

Update: US mobile operators are already resorting to the uninnovative approach of limiting mobile data use. Verizon will introduce tiered pricing on July 7. While this might be a good way to limit damage quickly, it leaves plenty of room for a smart start-up to offer unlimited packages and win public favour quickly.

The report forecasts that by 2014, at least 1 in 5 smartphones will be NFC capable and there will be 300 million such phones in use worldwide. By the end of 2012 itself, mobile network operators are expected to launch these services in 20 countries.

In recent times, NFC technology has been growing more popular owing largely to adoption by mobile operators, handset vendors and service providers.

As NFC services become more popular, retail marketing via coupons and smart posters will also become more common, especially in developed nations in North America and Western Europe.

In France alone, device vendors expect to sell 1 million NFC-capable handsets by the end of this year itself. The Far East and China are also expected to turn into large markets for this technology after 2012, due to the forecasted development of newer technology and better global standards.

2011 and 2012 are expected to be landmark years in the launch and propagation of NFC technology and the revenue generated from it is expected to touch $50 billion by 2014.

Although there are still some problems that need to be ironed out, NFC technology is here to stay.

The bad news is that the report also predicts that the costs faced by these mobile network operators are set to increase at an even higher rate, while the revenue will eventually begin to flat-line.

This will occur due to a combination of market saturation in conjunction with a fall in average revenue per user on the one hand and increased costs of handling mobile data traffic on the other hand.

If mobile operators wish to prevent such a catastrophe from occurring they need to start taking preventive and corrective steps right away. Juniper’s report also provides a few suggestions that the operators can implement in the near future. According to the author, Dr Windsor Holden, there is of course no simple or single solution that would be applicable to all operators. Operators need to study their own business model and use whatever steps are most applicable to them on a case by case basis.

Some of the suggestions include, offering integrated rate plans along with a wide range of segmented pre-paid and post-paid tariffs. Operators can also try to enhance their revenues in the cloud, on machine-to-machine and mobile financial services by leveraging their existing assets.

Second tier networks that have a much lower traffic could benefit by maintaining flat-rate plans for data bundles. Integrated mobile broadcasts can also serve to increase the revenue generated through 3G services, by improving capacity.

Another significant suggestion involves the transition from expensive fossil fuels to green networks and base stations. This particular move will not only improve cost efficiency, but will also be applauded by environmentalists.

This has been confirmed by the recently released Opera State of The Mobile Web report.

Accessing various social networking sites has become the most popular function on mobile phones. The network being commonly used varies depending on the location. While Facebook is definitely the most popular social site in the Western world, vKontakte is extremely popular in Russia and the surrounding region.

It has come to light that 77% of the users in Indonesia and the Philippines visit Facebook regularly on their mobiles. In this region alone, more than 400,000 Facebook users make use of Opera software to access social networks.

Those who use mobile devices to access social networks were also found to do so quite frequently, according to the page view statistics of the report.

Use of mobile handsets for social networking is expected to continue growing. It was found that between March 2011 and April 2011 the number of users of the Opera Mini Browser has grown by 4.6% to 107.1 million.

This seems to be quite a logical use of the mobile Web, as users naturally need to find out many things about a place they are new to. At such a time the mobile is the handiest and most easily available gadget to help them.

For instance, when a user ends up in a location unexpectedly, the user could find an appropriate hotel to stay in by searching for nearby accommodation. Similarly, if the user needed to make a booking for a flight to or from a particular location, the mobile would be very useful.

It has been found that mobile devices are used during all stages of travel, right from the initial research to planning, experiencing and sharing of the experience.

Google has revealed that about 19% of all hotel queries are now conducted through mobiles.

Analysts at eMarketer predict that the number of U.S. consumers making use of mobile for travel planning will rise from 19.7 million in 2010 to 29.7 million in 2012.

This growing use of mobile for travel related requirements is a good opportunity for marketers to reach a larger audience. In order to improve their performance, marketers should show location related ads to travelers. Click-To-Call and easy to download ads also improve client compliance. Tablet devices are fast becoming very popular and campaigns should also be catered to these devices.

While the percentage of users using their desktop PC to access their email has remained more or less constant, the percentage of those using their mobile phones to do so has increased substantially.

This conclusion was formed based on a study conducted by Return Path an email marketing and monitoring firm. According to their research, about 48% of users access their email through Web browsers such as GMail, Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail. On the other hand, those using desktop-based email programmes such as Microsoft Office Outlook account for about 36% of users.

In contrast, the fraction using a mobile device to access their email is about 16%. While this figure is much lower than the numbers for webmail and desktop mail, it has grown by nearly 81% during the 6-month period of the study. This growth has, quite obviously, occurred at the expense of the other options.

The iPad and other tablets have contributed largely to the growth of “mobile mail”, which allows users to check their email at any time and at any place. The study by Return Path shows that the use of tablets has surged by about 15% between October 2010 and March 2011. This surge is expected to continue, as newer devices hit the market.

The use of mobile mail is becoming important as it allows users to access their emails and learn of the latest developments at any time without missing out on some important communication.

On the traditional email side, desktop usage was high during the week, peaking on Wednesday and then tapering off over the weekend. Webmail use, on the other hand, is high on Monday, lowest on Wednesday and then rises gradually again to peak over the weekend. Neither of these statistics are surprising.

In contrast, mobile use remains fairly steady during the week, starts to rise on Thursday, peaks on Friday and Saturday and then drops again on Sunday, although it remains higher than on weekdays. Marketers need to keep these facts in mind when planning their campaigns so that they do not miss out on an opportunity to connect with their target audience.

A survey conducted by Greystripe the brand focused mobile ad network has recently revealed that two thirds of moms are using their smartphones to help them with their shopping.

The survey was conducted by them over a period of three months between November 2010 and February 2011 across 239 women with children. It has shown that 66% of the women surveyed made use of their smartphones while shopping.

• The commonest use of the smartphone was to locate the nearest store in the area. 45% of the women did this.
• 36% of the women used their smartphones to compare prices of commodities in different stores.
• 31% of the women used their phones for new product research.

Apart from this, women also used their smartphones to save money by downloading coupons through their Android or iPhones. The phones were also commonly used for shopping lists and to look up new recipes.

Dane Holewinski, director of marketing at Greystripe said “The majority of moms with smartphones are using those devices for their day-to-day tasks especially shopping, making them the ideal target for advertisers.”

Similar surveys carried out by others have shown somewhat conflicting results. A mobile shopping survey across 1600 women last year showed that 94% of them were interested in mobile shopping and mobile marketing.

During the same time frame a survey conducted by SheSpeaks found that only 10% of women had downloaded any apps related to shopping and 62% were not even interested in doing so.

In fact, studies conducted recently have indicated, that not only a large number of users already use smartphones, but a sizable portion of the rest plan to start using one within the next 3-6 months.

Several mobile operators have also announced that they intend to launch app stores in the near future. This will make it easier for users to download the apps they want.

Some of the popular manufacturers such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Blackberry already have their own app stores. As would be expected, Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android OS are the most popular among the users of smartphones.

Not only do users of iOS and Android OS download more apps, they also use each of these apps more frequently than users of other smartphones.

It has been found that users of Apple’s iPhone have an average of 48 apps, while Android OS users have 35 apps and Blackberry RIM users have 15 apps on their handsets. Additionally, 68% of iPhone users and 60% of Android users access their apps frequently everyday, while only 45% of RIM users do so.

In order to improve their odds, other manufacturers must keep in mind that they need to encourage their developers to come up with good apps, by keeping the process of app certification simple, as well as providing them with transparent revenue sharing systems as incentive.

Developers on the other hand, should keep in mind that a good app is one, which is not just interesting at first glance, but continues to hold ones interest and provides some valuable service or facility.

It has been predicted that Near Field Communications (NFC) services will expand greatly over the next three years and by 2014 at least 20% of smartphones will be NFC-capable. This of course means that the number of debit and credit cards in use will gradually diminish.

In fact, these services are expected to be launched across 20 countries by next year itself. Retail marketing and payments for purchases made, will be done through coupons and smartcards in Western Europe, North America and other developed nations.

Mobile operators have already made announcements in regard to NFC technology and manufacturers expect to sell 1 million NFC devices this year itself.

Mobile wallets are also expected to be frequently used for the purchase of tickets for travel on metro, bus and rail in future. Until last year, less than 100 million used the service for purchase of tickets, but by 2015 that figure is expected to cross half a billion. This will help transport companies to eventually cut down on their operational costs, while at the same time providing a great convenience to users.

Blackberry and Samsung will be launching NFC-enabled devices, while Orange will be launching contactless payment technology by the end of this year. Other companies are expected to follow suit.

It has been reported that in 2010 the monthly traffic for search through smart phones has gone up by 67 times. Users are now turning to the mobile for a variety of services.

A study by AdMob has shown that 29% of users use the mobile internet for over 1 hour per day and 35% of them use the mobile internet for longer than they watch TV. 24% spend more time on the mobile internet than on desktops. The mobile is also being used frequently for entertainment. 58% of users use the mobile internet at least 5 times a day.

But this growing popularity has generated some unhealthy competition between the popular local search engines Naver and Daum against Google.

Naver and Daum are considering filing a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) against Google.

The problem is that most smartphones are preloading the Google’s Android OS as the default search engine due to which users need to download the apps to access the local search engines. The local search engines are upset as this has resulted in a loss of market share for them.

The market for web searches shows that Naver has about 70% of the market share and Daum about 20% while Google has less than 10%.

On the other hand, for mobile searches, Naver has about 50% of the market share and Daum and Google have about 20% each.

Google on their part have said that the handset manufacturers are free to decide which OS they want Android is an open platform.

Many online communities have also accused Naver and Daum of having resorted to similar unfair trade practices in the past, and they are now crying foul because they are sailing in the same boat.

Near Field Communication (NFC) technology is used to develop mobile wallet services. Both Google and mobile provider Orange have started using the technology in the past few weeks.

Thousands of retailers are now set to start trying out this new service and it is estimated that about 40,000 retailers will have embraced it by the end of this year.

Orange and Mastercard will jointly launch a new handset, which will have this NFC technology embedded in it. The launch is expected to occur between April and June. O2 and Visa are expected to follow with their own NFC enabled handset a little later.

In order to popularise this service, banks, retailers, handset manufacturers and mobile phone operators are investing huge amounts of money in the infrastructure required.

While this facility is sure to make shopping a lot more convenient, the security aspect of such a service should not be taken lightly. Edward Chandler of Mastercard has said that it is a very secure service. In fact, he claims that it is as secure as any credit or debit card can be.

On the other hand, Kieren Hines, a mobile phone analyst says, “There are a lot of things that need to be resolved in the industry about how this is going to be rolled out. In terms of security you’re almost certainly going to have to enter a pin when you make a transaction.”

Some people have expressed concerns about security measures that will be available in case of loss or theft of an NFC wallet enabled mobile phone. The answer to this is quite logical if one considers the fact that a regular wallet containing credit or debit cards and cash is just as likely to be stolen or misplaced, and hence users will need to be cautious to avoid such a thing from happening, whether it is a wallet or a mobile phone.

If anything, having a mobile wallet could eliminate the need to carry a separate wallet, which would reduce the chances of theft as the number of valuable items that any individual would need to take care of would be reduced.

Although this is a good sign for those involved in mobile marketing, it is only the beginning, and the industry still has a long way to go.

In a recent interview, Laura Marriott CEO of NeoMedia said, “I think we all know there’s serious work to be done. We need more education at the point of sale. Codes need a clear and consistent explanation of what they are and how you can read them every time they’re printed. We also need to get scanners on more devices.”

According to her, only big brands are currently using the barcodes or QR codes, and it is necessary to get the smaller businesses interested in this service.

One reason why the barcodes may not be very popular, is that users can hardly be expected to scan a barcode with their mobile, when it is displayed on a billboard on the street.

Recently, however, NeoMedia launched a new barcode management platform, which provides enhanced and detailed analytics to the marketer, such as when, where and by whom the barcodes have been used.

In time, barcodes could become almost as popular as the website URL itself.

If this deal, reported by the Wall Street Journal, is finalised, Google will provide retailers with data about their users, which the retailer can then use to target specific ads and special offers to users in their vicinity.

In addition to being extremely beneficial to users and retailers, thereby driving adoption of Android mobile phones, this service will help Google earn more through ad revenue.

Holders of debit and credit cards from Citigroup and Mastercard will be allowed to activate a mobile payment application on their Android 2.3 phones. This will eliminate the need to carry separate debit and credit cards.

Google will be able to manage the credit card accounts as well as track the spending habits of the customer, through a special application.

Verifone Systems, a company that makes card readers, will make the contact-less devices required for this purpose. This system will function on near field communication (NFC) technology, much like the mobile payment system Orange plan to launch in the UK.

The near field communications technology used in these devices is far more sophisticated than the magnetic strip in the traditional debit or credit card and hence it will be safer to use.

Expected to be launched some time this year, this new service is expected to face competition from Apple and Blackberry, who will also soon make use of similar technology in collaboration with other credit card companies and financial institutions.

Google will, however, have to ensure that they do not upset the advocates of user privacy when they provide user data to retailers in their efforts to drive more ad revenue.

Mobile ticketing users store a ticket on their mobile device for later redemption. These tickets serve as a substitute for a traditional paper based ticket or even an e-ticket that needs to be printed out. When redeeming the mobile ticket, users simply need to show their handset to the ticket checker at the entry point to the venue.

At present, only about 1 in 20 consumers worldwide make use of mobile ticketing facilities, which means that the total number of users accessing these service is about 230 million.

Analysts at Juniper have projected that by 2015 this ratio wil go up to 1 in 8 and the actual number of mobile ticketing users will be about 750 million. It is also expected that the next two years will be crucial for the growth of this market.

Mobile ticketing services are already fairly popular in Japan, Central and Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. In these places, mobile ticketing is widely used to purchase tickets for transport, sporting events and entertainment.

Tickets, once booked, are delivered to the user in a variety of ways such as through SMS, mobile Web, bar codes, near field communication (NFC) and smartphone apps. It is essential for advertisers and vendors who wish to make use of this opportunity to plan their strategy well.

Total Mobile Phone Users (%) Who Use Mobile Ticketing Split by 8 Key Regions 2015

Far East mobile users are expected to continue leading the way in terms of adoption of this technology, even in 2015. Western European users are expected to be the second largest user group adopting mobile ticketing technology.

Howard Wilcox, author of the report says, “Mobile technology is moving the ticket machine into our pockets. Our research demonstrated that mobile ticketing will change the way that many people buy and obtain their regular, every day tickets that are mostly printed at the moment.”

A report from the banking firm Macquaire Group, using data from Efficient Frontier, has found that at present, mobile paid search spend accounts for 5% of paid search spend in the U.S.

It has also been estimated that this could further increase to 10% by the end of 2011. In actual terms, mobile paid spend could then be worth $1.1 billion.

Quite expectedly, it has been found that Google is the major stakeholder in this market with about 97% of the market share, while Yahoo! and Bing jointly hold about 3.2% of the market share.

95% of searches on the iPhone come through Google. Of these, 50% are from the tool bar, 42% from Google’s home page and less than 10% from Google Apps. On Android devices, the number of searches through Google is likely to be even closer to 100%.

If Bing manages to tie up with Apple to become their default search engine, a large share of the mobile search volume could automatically go to Bing. Or, iPhones could lose favour with some users for providing a poorer search experience.

CPC for mobile search is currently higher than that for PC searches in some markets, while click through rates for mobile search are lower than for PC searches.

A Growing Monopoly

Google CEO Eric Schmidt has said that mobile search is growing very fast. It now accounts for about 15% of search across all categories.

This underscores the importance of mobile search. The fact that Google’s starting off in this growing market with such a strong position can only mean one thing – its position will get stronger, at the expense of all competition, and as a result, CPC rates will go up.

Advertisers stand to lose in such a situation, as the lack of a viable alternative will leave businesses with no choice but to advertise on Google AdWords if they wish to build a mobile search presence.

Users too will suffer in the long run, as the lack of competition will stunt development in mobile search, as the incumbent, Google, will have little reason to continue to innovate in that space.

Grindr is the largest all-male location based social networking app and was first launched about 2 years ago.

The app already has about 1.5 million users spread across 180 countries. Of this, about 56,000 are in the New York area itself and around 3,000 new users are joining the service every day. The average user spends about 1.3 hours on this app daily.

Grindr has been available on the iPhone, iPod touch, iPad for some time and was launched on Blackberry handsets recently. Now, Android users will be able to interact with users on the aforementioned devices. They will be able to view profiles and photos and also chat with each other.

New Android users will also get a a free trial run of Grindr Xtra for 7 days after they download and run the app for the first time. Grindr Xtra is 100% ad free, thus giving the user more browsing space, and users will be able to view up to 200 men in their area. They will also be able to add 50 favourites. Users will receive notifications even when Grindr is running in the background. To view multiple profiles the user just needs to swipe back and forth. The monthly cost of the service is $4.97, which is lower than most other dating services.

Compared to other dating service, gay or straight, Grindr is definitely far ahead of the pack. The service was built specifically for mobiles, which means that it is built to facilitate interaction between users on the go, who are typing on a small screen. The simplicity of the app is its greatest asset, and is likely to steer its growth further.

When users click on ‘Deals’ they are shown a list of the special offers that are currently available in their locality.

Microsoft has started this feature in association with DealMap, which features deals from sites like Groupon, Living Social and Restaurant.com. The feature will offer about 200,000 deals across 14,000 cities.

Since the feature has only just been launched, the service is going through some teething troubles. For instance, a few of the deals being offered have already expired or the deal information may not yet have been optimised for mobile access. Given a little time, it is quite certain that these problems will be ironed out.

While the new service is compatible with both iPhone and Android based handsets, it is, quite surprisingly, not compatible with Microsoft’s own Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system. This incompatibility arises because the service is is built on HTML5, which is not compatible with Windows Phone 7. It is expected that Microsoft will soon add an update that will allow users to access this feature through the Windows Phone 7 and Internet Explorer 9.

Irrespective of the minor shortcomings of this feature, Microsoft is undoubtedly one up on their rival Google as Google has not yet got a similar feature. It has been rumoured, though, that Google plans to launch a similar service called “Google Offers” very soon, which might explain why Bing rushed to get Deals out in the market before it was fully developed to support Microsoft’s own devices.

Microsoft also plans to start a similar service in association with eBay.

The Android virus was discovered by a Reddit user, ‘Lompolo‘, who found a programme to play the guitar on a mobile phone, supposedly written by a person whom he knew was not the actual author of that programme. The app contained a virus code, which he found in 21 other apps, though many more could actually have been affected.

The virus, known as DroidDream, can send sensitive information such as the unique ID of a phone or a password to any other server.

Gingerbread, the latest version of the Android OS, is not susceptible to the DroidDream virus.

In addition to removing the affected apps from the Android Marketplace, Google has also suspended three accounts used by that developer. They have, however, not issued a formal statement about the rogue apps.

It has been pointed out that such rogue apps are one of the negative effects of the open nature of the Android OS.

Coincidentally, last week also saw a major attack affect the London Stock Exchange (LSE) site. According to the investigations conducted, it was found that the damage was done when a third-party advertiser, Unanimis, was hacked.

Though the site had been blocked on Firefox it was accessible through Chrome. Once a user accessed the site, pop-ups started appearing on their own and indicated fake virus alerts. A fake security scanner claimed to detect a lot of malware.

When Google’s safe browsing service crawled through the site, they found that it had been compromised at least 6 times in the last 90 days, and over 363 pages of the 1,112 scanned by them had been affected.

This estimated growth is based on the expectation that smart phone usage will continue to increase along with the availability of new apps.

Already there is a high level of awareness of services such as social media, videos, music and games on mobile. The open mobile Internet has also led to greater availability of services such as gambling and adult content.

Big brands have started allocating large amounts of money to advertising through mobiles. Consumer brands such as Coca-Cola have long recognised the potential of this medium. Other brands, especially those that rely on business via a local presence, such as hotels, stores and even smaller restaurants have now started investing heavily in the medium. An increasing amount of this investment is now being diverted to mobile entertainment, in addition to mobile apps and location-based advertising.

Over the last few years, the size as well as type of content available for mobile entertainment has changed, thus providing more opportunities for monetisation. Analysts at Juniper predict that music will continue to be the largest source of revenue generation in the mobile entertainment market, and the fastest growing sector will be gambling.

Geographically, not much is changing, as the Far East and China, followed by Western Europe, are predicted to be the largest markets for revenue generation.

This is certainly good news for the industry, as it means that music downloads to mobile handsets are expected to more than double in value within the next 5 years, from $2.4 billion in 2010.

The music industry had been going through a very lean phase for the last several years due to the rampant prevalence of online piracy. After the introduction of P2P file sharing, people tended to avoid buying records and CDs from the market, and just downloaded the music illegally.

In order to fight this piracy, companies like Apple introduced iTunes in 2003. People could now easily and legally download the music in the form of ring tones, ring back tones, full track services and music videos by paying for it.

While PCs with MP3 players were earlier required to download the music, the recent technological advances made by the handset industry have now made mobiles the most popular tools to download music.

In fact, according to the Juniper report, the sales of the iPhone will soon exceed that of the iPod because of this. Google has also gone into the mobile music business with the intention of making their Android OS more popular than Apple’s iOS.

Whether this saves the music industry as we know it, or seeds a revolution where record labels become obsolete or have to redefine their business model in order to effective monetise music downloads by consumers without worrying about piracy eating into their revenues remains to be seen.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas of Bing Maps and Mobile said in an interview with Forbes, “The model of apps for everything is broken in a very fundamental way, a lot like the way the web was before there was a good search engine.” In the old days, people used to type the web address in the URL bar. Even now, this helps in deciding which app to use.

According to Arcas, some of the apps will become “baked-in” default options, depending on the circumstances and the search engine may also suggest some apps. Microsoft has previously talked about doing this by making use of the phone’s sensors such as its camera and location detection mechanism in order to anticipate some of the user’s queries and requirements in advance.

The success of the iPhone and Android have led to the availability of over 3,00,000 apps for mobile devices. To get ahead in this race, Microsoft will have to streamline the process of finding and using apps and make many of them a part of the Windows mobile operating system.

Windows Phone 7 already has 30,000 drivers, which is a good thing as far as providing options is concerned, but it slows down the speed with which the apps are available. Microsoft will, therefore, have to decide how best they can combine reliability with speed in order to improve usability.

As with search, Microsoft might be entering the market too late, with little new technology to make a significant impact. Microsoft’s mobile operating system has a fairly low market share of just 2%, compared to 8% for Google’s Android. The software giant would need to develop some really ground-breaking technology to break the current trend and make significant gains in the mobile market.

Bing conducted a poll of users between the ages of 16 and 35 years and came across some interesting findings. They found that men were doubly likely to use their mobile phones to find the perfect romantic restaurant or an appropriate gift.  Whereas, only about a third of users use their mobiles for directions when they get lost on their way to a new restaurant.

Keeping these findings in mind, the Bing team made arrangements with Digital Dating Experts, Debra Goldstein and Olivia Baniuszewicz to provide interesting Valentine’s day tips to their users.

Content has been created specifically for the occasion so that users can go to m.bing.com on their mobile to get details about restaurants, theatres and bars.

Special tips are provided for men, including setting up a date near to the location of the woman they are pursuing. Romantic and easy recipes are also available. Flirtexting tips also tells users to avoid using smileys, acronyms and emotional messages. While replying to a message, users are advised to wait a while but not for too long.

Developers have also created mobile Web applications to help users find partners and gifts. Many of the smartphone apps are available for free, such as apps from SpeedDate, eHarmony, Match.com and OKCupid.

Gifts available on mobiles range from Valentine’s Day cards, to flowers and diamonds. Romantic music and poetry are also available.

This is the first time that major online brands are focusing on events on mobile and creating special content and sales for mobile, just as they normally would in the wired world.

Nokia, the handset manufacturing giant, has been going through a deepening crisis since the launch of the Apple iPhone in 2007. The company has decided to sideline their Symbian OS in favour of the Windows Phone OS for their smartphones.

Microsoft Windows Phone on a Nokia handset

Nokia will also use other Microsoft services such as the Bing search engine for their mobile phones. This could turn into a serious blow for Google Mobile and help Bing to gain a larger share in the mobile search market.

The move is expected to help Nokia fight the growing popularity of the Apple iPhone as well as the Google Android platform. Nokia’s new Chief Executive, Stephen Elop, worked with Microsoft until last September, when he took charge of Nokia. The relationship comes as no surprise, not only due to Elop’s historical associations with Microsoft, but also because of the fact that Google is seen as a competitor.

According to Elop, “Nokia is at a critical juncture, where significant change is necessary and inevitable in our journey forward. Today, we are accelerating that change through a new path, aimed at regaining our smartphone leadership.” He also indicated that there would be a management reshuffle, and some people may also lose their jobs.

Though Nokia is still the largest handset manufacturer in the world, its market share has fallen from 36.4% to 28.9% in the last year.

Reactions to the announcement have been quite negative, and the price of Nokia shares has fallen 9.8% since the announcement. Even though this could be Microsoft’s biggest stroke of luck, with respect to mobile search, their shares didn’t rise much either.

Could this be both Microsoft and Nokia’s chance to strike the smartphone and mobile Web markets and make a serious change in both their fortunes?

According to comScore’s report, 2010 US Digital Year in Review, new and highly advanced mobile handsets were introduced along with new mobile content options and applications. The use of smart phones and the 3G spectrum increased significantly and the use of browsers and applications through mobile handsets went up by 7.6 percentage points between December 2009 and 2010 as a result of this.

The availability of new data plans with 3G and 4G services have also furthered the growth of the mobile industry. 29% of mobile subscribers now have unlimited data plans compared to 21.7% last year. This, coupled with the introduction of handsets such as the iPhone 4, Windows Phone 7 and RIM Blackberry Torch has caused the usage of smart phones to reach an all-time high of 27% of all mobile handsets.

While RIM remains number 1 with a 31.6% share of the smartphone operating system market, Google’s Android OS has become the second largest, with 28.7% of the market largely due to large-scale adoption of Google Android powered devices.

Samsung was the most popular handset manufacturer last year in the U.S.A. accounting for 24.8% market share of devices sold. LG was second followed by Motorola, RIM and Apple.

Mobile devices continued to be used for a wide variety of activities in addition to making phone calls. Text messaging was the most popular activity, with 68% of American mobile subscribers texting in Decmber 2010.

While the dominance of SMS might seem old-fashioned, one must keep in mind that the mobile phone is a communications device first and foremost. Moreover, a number of new technologies saw increased adoption too. 39.5% of subscribers used their mobiles to get news and information, 36.4% used their mobile browsers, 34.4% used mobile apps and 21.4% accessed mobile search services.

The service is being introduced jointly by Orange, Bouygues Telecom and SFR, in conjunction with computer services group Atos Origin. The service will be called Buyster and is likely to be introduced in France by summer this year.

www.buyster.fr

Buyster will allow users to make payments for purchases made online, by linking their mobile phone to a bank card. The new service will be based on the same Near Field Communication (NFC) technology that Orange is using for mobile payments in the UK. Users will be able to just wave or touch their mobile phones against an in-store reader to make a payment.

Mobile operator Orange estimates that the service will soon be made available to more than 50 million users. French online retailers are extremely happy with the news of this service, as the convenience it will provide can only help to improve business.

Laurent Bailly, head of marketing at Buyster, said that the service will later be extended across Europe. However, many observers are raising doubts about the possibility of the success of the service outside of France.

The system is expected to launch by summer this year, and will offer a convenient alternative during the Olympic Games to be held in London next year.

Contactless Payment technology, the system launched for travel payments by mobile provider O2 in 2009, will contribute to the basis for the mobile payment platform. Orange will launch new SIM cards with Near-Field Communication (NFC) technology, which is also used in new credit and debit cards nowadays.

Users will be able to “wave” their mobile phones at shop tills from a distance of about 10 centimetres to make their payments.

The system will be very convenient as mobile phone will now also function as a wallet and users will not have to bother to carry cash or credit cards.

Orange is working with Barclaycard to launch this new service. Over 40,000 businesses have already expressed their willingness to subscribe to this new payment option. Initially the service will only allow for the payment of small sums up to ₤15.

A similar facility for payment through mobile phones has been available in Japan and Korea for several years now.

According to a report from the Payments Council in the U.K., “by 2050, using cash could well be a minority activity.”

Mobile advertising for finance companies has grown 802% year-on-year. The top 6 sectors that have shown substantial growth in mobile advertising are:

1. Finance (802%)
2. Retail and restaurants (745%)
3. Telecommunications (719%)
4. Travel (411%)
5. Armed forces (372%)
6. Entertainment (315%)

One of the major factors for this growth in mobile advertising spend by the financial services industry could be because consumers who wish to manage their money more closely during the recession are increasingly making use of their mobiles to keep track of their banking, credit and investments at all times.

Within the financial services sector, the leading sub-sectors, in terms of mobile advertising spend on Millenial’s network were as follows:

1. Banking (38% of Finance sector’s spend)
2. Car insurance (20%)
3. Life insurance (15%)
4. Home loans (12%)

Some may be surprised by the presence of the U.S. armed forces on the list. However, if one considers the facts that teenagers are the most prolific users of mobile technology and that teenagers are also the prime demographic targeted by the armed forces for recruitment, the numbers are not that surprising.

An important factor driving the growth of mobile advertising as a whole is the fact that it allows advertiser the flexibility to choose between various types of customer contact options, including ring backs, form submission, coupon downloads and store locators.

Users thus get a wider choice, and are therefore more likely to respond to the ads  at their convenience without feeling imposed upon. The net result being that advertisers often receive a better response and conversion rate.

Mobile engagement methods used by finance services providers

Reports from Enders Analysis, a mobile and media research company, show that 2011 is expected to be the year when mobile advertising would come into its own. In fact, since the price of mobile ads is even lower than that of online ads, in most categories, the growth of mobile ads may adversely affect the online advertising industry. Enders predicts that by 2015, mobile advertising will account for 9.5% of all online advertising.

Last September, rumours that Facebook was making its own mobile phone were fueled by posts on TechCrunch and Bloomberg. Both reported on tips from anonymous sources that Facebook had started making their own mobile phone. Facebook was supposedly manufacturing the required software, and the hardware was to be made by another manufacturer.

The continued growth and popularity that mobile social networking and Facebook in particular were enjoying made it seem logical that Facebook would try to integrate their apps into mobile phones. Since this was only possible if they had control over the operating system, it was believed that they would want to make their own handsets.

The rumours had even pinpointed two employees – Joe Hewitt and Matthew Papakipos – who were supposed to be secretly working on the project.

Facebook was reported to be in talks with INQ Mobile to build the phone and AT&T was believed to be the chosen carrier, although nothing was finalised. The social network was supposedly considering the development of 2 handset models, one with a full QWERTY keyboard and the other with just a touch screen. The p hones were expected to be very reasonably priced.

These rumours were then laid to rest when a Facebook spokesperson clarified to Mashable that they were only interested in making mobile apps more social and not in building phones.

Now, the rumours have started afresh ever since a description of INQ’s new mobile phone surfaced. The description of the new phone was obtained via the Blutooth certification that was recently awarded to the device.

The new INQ phone is supposed to be an “Android smartphone built to make messaging faster and smarter”. It’s designed around the way people naturally communicate and has Facebook built into its core. The homescreen features multiple entry points to different Facebook functions, while a dynamic widget displays a feed of status updates, albums, videos and photos.

While a lot of the speculation leads one to believe that the original rumours were probably true, only a handful of people are in a position to verify the truth. Facebook did deny the rumours at the early stage. Though, that could be because it was probably too premature to admit to anything back in October. Whether Facebook denies this new set of rumours or not might give a better indication of the truth.