Smartphone Ownership Doubled in One Year
Web surfing, social networking and emailing – from computer to mobile
As mobile evolves into a composite of voice, text, video, Internet and applications, the mobile industry is experiencing remarkable demand from consumers who now use their Smartphones for more than just talk. The Nielsen Company today announces the addition of Mobile Internet Audience Measurement to its Market Intelligence (MI) service in Hong Kong, the first mobile Internet measurement service.
The launch of Mobile Market Intelligence, in strategic relationship with the leading mobile advertising network provider HotMob Limited (who has generated more than 1 billion impressions in 2010), addresses the demands in providing a third-party, consistent and transparent metric for mobile advertisers and publishers. “With the increasing amount of mobile Internet usage, advertisers, agencies and publishers are looking for reliable data and insights to make sure they are staying ahead of the rapid technological evolution and being connected with their targeted consumers,” said Oliver Rust, Managing Director, The Nielsen Company Hong Kong. “Mobile Market Intelligence will, for the first time, provide independent, third party data on how Hong Kong consumers are using their mobile phones to access the Internet, helping to support mobile advertising decisions.”
The Mobile Market Intelligence service tracks mobile websites, iPhone and Android applications including Openrice, HKMovie, Baby-Kingdom, etc. The service will track made-for-mobile content from content aggregators, publishers and telecom carriers which are accessed via devices such as feature and Smartphones. Metrics available through the service include average daily unique browsers, sessions, page impressions and average session duration.
According to the latest 2010 Nielsen Media Index, mobile phones are taking an ever-expanding role in becoming an indispensable gadget in consumers’ daily lives. Smartphone ownership has more than doubled in 2010 over 2009, indicating that people today are more immersed in mobile technology than ever.
The Nielsen Media Index, a product of The Nielsen Company since 1969, is a unique single-source multi-media survey that provides insights into media habits, lifestyles, attitudes and product consumption of consumers in Hong Kong. Released quarterly, the latest study in Hong Kong polled over 5,900 individuals aged 12-64 via a combination of face-to-face and online interviews.
Who owns a Smartphone?
As of end of 2010, Smartphone users tend to be skewed towards male (60%), aged 20-44 (66%) and are more affluent. 32 percent of them live in households with a combined income of HK$40,000 or above per month and on average, a Smartphone user earns almost 50 percent more than a feature phone user.
What do they use the Smartphone for?
Similar to any mobile phone users, Smartphone users use their phones mainly for text-messaging (71%), photo taking (66%) and listening to songs (50%). Yet, the advanced features of Smartphones result in users being more engaged for various mobile Internet activities such as web page surfing (44%), accessing to social networking sites (41%), email services (31%) and electronic news reading (26%). The heavy usage of mobile Internet activities indicates the rapid emergence of the third screen – the mobile space.
“With the rapid development Smartphones, everything people need is in the palm of their hands. With the mobile web becoming an integral part of consumers’ lives, it is expected that the mobile space will be an up-and-coming platform for marketers to effectively reach their target customers,“ said Rust.
As a result of the advanced features available on Smartphones, network stability has become as important as mobile tariff (29%) in the decision making in choosing a mobile network provider. For the general mobile phone users, tariff (39%) is seen as a more important factor than network stability (24%) given the requirements on data and Internet access.
With the increasing importance of the mobile platform, it is expected that the demand for mobile devices and data will continue to expand, leading to many opportunities for service providers, device manufacturers, retailers and content providers. It is therefore crucial for marketers to understand the mobile behaviors of different market segments to communicate more effectively with their target groups through mobile services and devices.
