The FT 1000 - The Complete List of Europe's Fastest Growing Companies 2018

For those of you interested in start-ups and growth businesses, this list will be invaluable. It's a link to the FT 1000 which lists the companies in 31 European countries that have achieved the highest compound annual growth rate in revenue between 2013 and 2016. Note the measurement is revenue not profit.

It's worth a glance if you have any interest in business. The data is downloadable as a spreadsheet and searchable. The FT also shares their methodology.

Top line findings:

• Technology dominates the list with 155 entries and Deliveroo at #1 replacing Germany's HelloFresh
• London has held on to its position as the most popular base for HQ with 74 entries (Paris has 62, Milan 25).
• Fintech has performed well (Good news for London).
• UK, Spain, Germany and France all have a strong presence in the Top 20.
• The lowest average growth rate in this year's ranking was 34.6% vs last year's 16.1%.
• Germany leads the way in the advertising sector as they also do in the Automobile sector. I would have expected the latter but not the former. I wonder why British advertising companies aren't showing similar growth.

I haven't heard of the majority of these companies. Am I out of touch? Maybe. Or is that successful companies very often get there completely under the radar? Or maybe it's down to my focus and visibility of British companies. I'm thinking probably the latter. Something for me to ponder on over a cup of tea...

You can find the list here.

Deloitte's 2016 UK Mobile Consumer Report is out 'There's No Place Like Phone'

And it's a treasure trove of the latest consumer trends when it comes to mobile usage in the UK. Well worth a look if you're interested in the British consumer at all.

From the executive summary (emphasis my own and some minor edits):

"This year’s report marks the end of the smartphone growth era, and the start of its consolidation. A mere nine years after the launch of the first full touchscreen smartphone, adoption is nearing a plateau, at 81 per cent of UK adults, and 91 per cent of 18–44 year olds.

The smartphone user base is approaching an unprecedented peak. No other personal device has had the same commercial and societal impact as the smartphone, and no other current device seems likely to. While the base may plateau, relentless innovation continues at device and network levels. Devices are likely to incorporate more functionality and get even faster. Biometric sensors, particularly fingerprint readers, are likely to see widespread adoption.

Over a quarter of smartphones now have a fingerprint reader, of which three quarters are in use. The majority of phones are now connected to 4G, and cellular networks are getting ever faster, with headline speeds now at over 300 Mbit/s.1 As speeds rise, ever more latent, high bandwidth applications become viable. It is now as easy to read the news on a phone as it is to live stream a breaking news event from a smartphone.

Businesses and consumers are still determining how best to use these devices. For the former, a common dilemma is over whether to use apps or websites. The typical UK user downloads 20 or fewer apps.

Our research suggests that apps are not the right approach for every business.

Consumers, who collectively look at their smartphones 0.4 trillion times per year, still need to identify how to use their devices in a balanced way, at a level that suits them, their other halves and colleagues. It is the sleek digital Swiss army knife that can be used at every stage of the day. How people will use their devices to communicate will be driven by consumers.

The traditional voice call has become steadily less popular over the last four years, and usage of email, social networks and instant messaging has risen in tandem."

Click here for the PDF.

Is Google our Mobile OS Overlord?

I stumbled across this chart earlier today. It's from Statista using data from Gartner and it shows the global smartphone operating system market share.



You will find more statistics at Statista

If you're looking at the UK only, then the market share is still dominated by Android but not as steeply. This is my source for the UK data for the chart below and I'm guessing their source will be Gartner or similar.


If you look at either chart, you can see that Google is currently winning the battle both at a Global level and in the UK. Whether they've won the war or not is a different matter in different countries. There is still much to play for and it's a dynamic market. Nokia was once as dominant as Google is now.

Understanding your market

However, it is also important to note that when you're running mobile activity that you understand the nuances of the market(s) in which you're operating and the habits of your customers. And it's not just an Android vs everyone else story. There are so many shades of Android and such a wide variety of handset capabilities within Android that you also need to understand that at a deeper level. There's everything from the high-end devices from Samsung, Sony Experia and their ilk down to the sub £100 handsets to even cheaper devices in developing countries.

It is still important to avoid memory and RAM hungry apps if you can as many of your customers simply won't be able to access them or if they do, it's at the expense of other apps - a one-in and one-out scenario.

I'm also musing if the first chart will do a full circle and go back to the multiple OS environment we had 7 years ago. Probably not anytime soon, but it could happen. Look at Nokia.

Ofcom Communications International Report 2015 is out

This is a personal favourite and highly recommend Ofcom’s various communications reports. For those outside of the UK, Ofcom, aka The Office of Communications, is a UK government department and produces a range of reports looking at communications usage across the UK. It’s a brilliant, neutral resource, and what’s more, it’s completely free. Find out more about the data sets and report.
Some highlights from this year’s International Report:

“The communications sector’s total global revenues in 2014 were £1,190bn, growing by 1.5% year on year (incorporating the telecoms, television, postal and radio sectors). Global television industries had the largest increase in revenue in 2014, up by £12bn (5%), to £244bn. Telecommunications revenue, although the largest by a considerable margin, registered slow growth of 0.5% to reach £846bn.

UK communications sector revenues were the fifth highest of our comparator countries and the second highest in Europe. In 2014, as in recent years, the three largest communications markets by revenue were in the US (£316bn), China (£135bn) and Japan (£110bn). Outside the top three, the total UK revenue of £48bn was second only to Germany (£55bn).

4G mobile population coverage (from at least one operator) increased in most comparator countries in 2014, with China having the largest year-on-year increase, rising from 1% to 73%. The UK had 84% 4G mobile population coverage at year-end 2014, an increase of 21 percentage points.

The UK had the highest proportion of total mobile connections that were 4G, of the EU5 countries in 2014, at 28%. Among all our comparator countries, South Korea had the highest proportion of mobile connections that were 4G, at 63% of connections, followed by the US (40%), and Australia and Singapore (both 39%).

Around two-thirds (67%) of UK respondents use a smartphone. This is in line with France, Germany and Australia. Spain and Italy had the highest smartphone take-up, at 83% and 79% of respondents respectively, and the US reported the lowest take-up of our comparator countries, at 57%.

Spain (45%) and the UK (42%) have the highest levels of ownership of connected TVs (either smart TV sets, or sets connected to the internet via another device, such as a set-top box, video games console, or other internet-enabled device).

Nearly two-thirds (66%) of people in the UK had used an online service to watch TV or films within the past week (increasing to 81% in the past month); the highest proportion across all of the countries surveyed.

Around four in ten (44%) UK respondents had used a catch-up service from a free-to-air broadcaster within the past week, the greatest proportion of any country surveyed.”

I highly recommend you download the report and add it to your holiday reading list and gen up for the New Year.

New Ofcom Research Reports are out

Ofcom is an incredible resource for marketers and those working in any kind of media. They keep track of what UK customers are up to in terms of media and telecoms consumption. And not only that, they are now looking across Europe. And all this is free.

So if you fancy some light reading over the weekend, or need something for that train or plane journey home for Christmas, then you could do worse than download these latest Ofcom reports.

Ofcom’s International Communications Market Report (ICMR) 2014 examines take-up, availability, price and use of communications services across the world's major countries.

Some highlights

The UK is leading in many aspects of communication. The UK’s internet economy is one of the strongest in the world, driven by record online advertising, spending and entertainment consumption, new figures from Ofcom reveal. The country also leads the EU’s five biggest economies for broadband take-up, usage and superfast broadband coverage.

Ofcom finds that the UK has the highest e-commerce spending among the major nations surveyed in today’s research, with consumers paying almost £2,000 on average online for goods each year. This was significantly higher than the next-highest valued market of Australia (£1,356 per head).

Two-fifths (40%) of advertising spending in the UK is online - more than any of the other countries analysed. And the spend has doubled on mobile advertising.

The UK also has the highest coverage of superfast broadband among Europe’s five leading economies (the ‘EU5’ - France, Germany, Italy Spain and the UK). Nearly eight in 10 UK homes are now able to access superfast broadband, which provides connection speeds of 30 Mbit/s or above. (Note to self – I must upgrade my service!)

Interestingly, social networking usage has declined. I’ve certainly noticed that myself amongst my own contacts, particularly the younger ones. I expect they’re connecting via Snapchat, Whatsapp and Instagram rather than Facebook and Twitter.

The proportion of online adults in this country accessing social networks each week fell from 65% in September 2013 to 56% in October 2014. This was the steepest fall of any of the countries surveyed. That is quite a drop. And I wonder if it’s a blip or if it’s the beginning of the end of the social network as we know it?

Social network use also fell in the USA, Japan and China. However, it is still increasing in some other countries - including Italy, which is now the leading country for social networking, with three quarters of Italians using such sites at least once a week.

Source: http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2014/icmr-2014/

The other report that was published is the European Broadband Scorecard, which compares internet coverage, take-up, usage and choice between EU states. The reports underline the importance of the internet and broadband to UK consumers, businesses and the economy as a whole.

Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013

The rather good Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2013 is out now. It’s quite a long report – you can download a copy here and below you’ll find the PowerPoint charts that support the report.

I won’t lie, there’s a lot to read here and, clearly, a lot of work went into it and I will be taking my time to go through it all.

The short version based on what I’ve read so far is…

• News is becoming more mobile, more social, and more real-time
• Digital patterns becoming more entrenched – particularly amongst the younger half of the population
• Audiences increasingly want news on any device, in any format, and at any time of day.
• Digital revolution is not proceeding at an even pace in all countries.
• Social media take-up varies across countries
• Ever-greater competition and more disruption to business models to come
• More people say they've paid for digital news in the past 10 months so there’s still hope

Some of these points are no surprise to those of us working in mobile. And it just confirms that the pace of change is fast. Even if you’re not in the newspaper industry, I think this is worth a glance as it reveals some key trends that are relevant and of interest to other sectors.

Based on the methodology, the UK findings are perhaps the most pertinent as that’s where there were the highest level of respondents. Of course, they did only survey a limited amount people so it’s a representation but the data was weighted to targets set on age and gender, region, newspaper readership, and social grade to reflect the total population of each country. The sample is reflective of the population that has access to the internet.

As if you need any further convincing that now is the time to get your mobile strategy sorted, maybe this reports will be the nudge you need if you’re not already on the case.

Interested to hear your thoughts and examples of other recent reports that back up or contradict Reuters’ findings.

 

Reuters digital news report 2013 from Nic Newman

Young People’s Consumer Confidence Index

The good people at OnDevice Research have just released their latest report about young people’s consumer confidence index. Whether or not you’re in marketing, this is a good read and a barometer of how it is for young people globally, what’s affecting them and their job prospects and how they’re using social media compared by country. There are some clear contrasts between countries, but it seems that, currently, Facebook is almost ubiquitous.

The methodology behind the research is also interesting as it’s wholly mobile. 6000 demographically balanced mobile users aged 16-34 years old across China, India, Nigeria, Brazil, the US and UK completed a survey via the Internet on their mobile device. Additional questions were asked from a larger sample size of 17,657 (aged 16-34) about social media.

Well worth a read to complement the Mary Meeker trends report.

Young People’s Consumer Confidence Index from On Device Research

Another great slide deck from Mary Meeker–2013 Trends

As usual, it’s a ‘must read’ for anyone in business. The trends are laid out very plainly and although there is a US focus, the results and trends shared are global and it’s likely your country, or the countries you do most business in will be in there.

Mobile is showing ‘aggressive momentum’ – not that I’m surprised by that, but sometimes it needs to be restated and the information that Mary shares is compelling and shows just how fast that growth is. There are some surprising stats in there, including that the people of Saudi Arabia share most content on the internet. I must admit, I want to see the background data for that, but it’s curious none the less. The UK and US are way down the chart for that one compared with emerging economies.

Anyway, take a look for yourself and share with your colleagues.

KPCB Internet Trends 2013 from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

The UK Mobile Movement–we’re mad for mobile

For those of us who have worked in the industry for a while, none of this new research from Google about the UK mobile market will come as a surprise. The upshot is that UK smartphone customers are using their mobile phones for everything from search and entertainment to buying their weekly groceries, and more. But if you still need some convincing, or your client needs a nudge in the right direction, then tell them to look at this video from Google and download the full study here.

You can also go straight to the video’s page here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXWViuSjB3A

UK mobile internet usage on the up

No big surprise in that headline I guess. We’ve only seen an upward trend with mobile internet usage, but it’s nice to have the facts to hand in the latest report from the Office of National Statistics (that’s a UK government department in case you didn’t know). You can download the full press release from http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171778_227158.pdf

Key points:

• 17.6m mobile phone internet users in the UK which represents 45 per cent of Internet users used a mobile phone to connect to the Internet compared with 8.5m (23%) in 2009
• 6 million people accessed the Internet over their mobile phone for the first time in the previous 12 months
• The use of wireless hotspots almost doubled in the last 12 months to 4.9 million users from 0.7m in 2007
• 21 per cent of Internet users did not believe their skills were sufficient to protect their personal data
• 77 per cent of households had Internet access

Interesting to note also, that women are joining the mobile internet generation: the number of women using mobile phones to access the Internet has more than doubled, from 18 per cent of Internet users in 2009 to 39 per cent in 2011. And also there is strong usage from younger people. This is a change in pattern and I guess is down to more economical ways of accessing the mobile internet (via hotspots and better managed data pricing) as well as more usage of touchscreen phones which makes the experience more enjoyable.

I’ll leave you to read the rest about online habits. Bottom line is, everything is going up.

Hat tip @addictivemobile

Mobile Advertising Market in the UK has more than doubled

Smartphone usage more than doubles mobile advertising expenditure in 2010. New research from the IAB and PwC shows UK mobile advertising market grew 116% to £83 million in 2010. Traditional advertisers invest in mobile as finance, telecoms and FMCG increase spend.

Well, this is good news for the mobile advertising sector on the face of it. At last, we’re seeing mainstream adoption of mobile advertising – largely boosted by the adoption and usage of smartphones (and I suspect the iPhone had a large part to play in that too).

According to the research, mobile advertising has experienced a staggering 116% year on year growth (on a like for like basis), up from 32% growth in 2009. Advertisers spent £83 million on mobile advertising in 2010, according to the third annual IAB and PwC mobile study.

Entertainment and media has dominated the spend for the past couple of years, but its dominance is reducing as other advertisers – in particular financial, telecom providers and consumer good brands – see the opportunity the sector has to offer.

Smartphone adoption isn’t the only driver for the growth in spend. The way consumers are using mobile to access media has changed dramatically over the past few years.

Advertisers’ spend on search on mobile has nearly tripled from 2009, going up from £20.2 million to £54.9 million. Display advertising in the form of banner ads, text links, and tenancies experienced a rise of 62% to £23.7 million, from £14.6 million in 2009. The mobile format of pre-and post-roll adverts also experienced a rise of 492% to £1.1 million, up from £0.2 million in 2009, showing that the rich media opportunities that smartphones offer are being taken advantage of by advertisers.

Jon Mew, director of mobile and operations at the IAB, said: “This year’s research shows that traditional advertisers such as finance, telecoms and consumer goods are really starting to understand the opportunities that mobile, and only mobile, offers. Mobile advertising allows advertisers to target people on the move, and capture them when they’re most receptive. It’s an exciting time for mobile advertising, and for advertisers who use the opportunities.”

Anna Bartz, strategy manager at PwC, said: “We are witnessing patterns of growth similar to online advertising in its early stages. Increasing technology packed into handsets coupled with decreasing costs, presents brands with a tempting opportunity to target mobile consumers.”

Top spenders

The report shows the top five display advertising categories in 2010:

• Entertainment & Media – 32.9% (61.5% in 2009)
• Finance – 18.6% (8.1% in 2009)
• Telecoms – 14.3% (14.7% in 2009)
• Consumer Goods – 11.8% (3.2% in 2009)
• Automotive – 6.5% (2.5% in 2009).

Expenditure on Mobile advertising formats

Search - £54.9 million, up from £20.2 million in 2009, a growth of 172%

Display advertising - £28.1 million, up from £17.4 million in 2009, a growth of 61%

This category is broken down into:

· Banners and text links were up 62% year-on-year to £23.7 million (£14.6m in 2009).

· Tenancies were up 18% year-on-year to £1.7m (£1.4m in 2009) and a market share of 2% (3.8% in 2009).

· Pre- and Post-roll advertising was up 492% year-on-year to £1.1 million, (£0.2m in 2009) and a market share of 1.3% (0.5% in 2009).

· Other formats - including display advertising within SMS / MMS - £1.6 million, up from £1.2 million in 2009, a growth of 32% year-on-year.

Market Shares

Search continues to dominate with a market share of 66% (54% in 2009)

Display advertising (banners and text) - market share of 29% (39% in 2009)

Other formats (tenancies, pre/post roll, SMS and other) - market share is 5% (7% in 2009).

KEY DRIVERS AND INSIGHTS

· In 2008, the year records began, mobile phone advertising accounted for £28.6 million.

· In 2009 mobile phone advertising increased 32% year on year to £37.6m.

· *UK Smartphone ownership in 2010 was up 58% year-on-year to 36% of the UK (Dec 2010, Comscore)

· There are 23.3m mobile users in the UK (Dec 2010) – up 21% year-on-year (3 month av. ending Dec 2010 Comscore)

· In December 2010, 6.3 billion minutes have been spent browsing the mobile internet (Comscore GSMA MMM, 2010)

· The number of minutes spent per user, per month went up 32% over 2010 to 301 minutes per person (Comscore GSMA MMM, 2010)

· Mobile media users pick up their phone 18 times a day to consume content via apps/browser. (Mobile in the Media Day, IAB Research Jan 2011)

· 40% of mobile media users agree they often use their mobile if they see an interesting ad (Mobile in the Media Day, IAB Research Jan 2011)

· 51% of the UK population has engaged in M-Commerce (IAB Consumer M-Commerce Study Oct 2010)

o Used mobile for research for purchasing (43%)

o Used mobile for enhancing a purchasing experience (35%)

o Paid for something on mobile straight to bill (37%)

o Paid for something on mobile via card/bank/PayPal (27%)

Let’s get a little perspective

This is all great – really useful information, solid growth patterns and clear reasons for adopting mobile if you’re a consumer brand.

However, let’s look at the figures a little more… £82m sounds like a lot, right?

Well, for the mobile advertising world, yes it’s a lot. But not if you’re in TV advertising. A single 30-second spot across the UK in primetime is going to cost you something like £60k to £80k at rate card. Add those up for however many ad spots there are, by number of ad breaks, and you soon get into big money pretty quickly. And that doesn’t include production which can be 5, 6 or even 7 figures to produce. Admittedly, savvy buyers are not going to be paying rate card, but it puts it into perspective why above the line agencies haven’t been exactly embracing mobile technology with open arms. The maths doesn’t (yet) stack up for them. The commission they would make on mobile is still small compared with what they can make on TV. Even today in this digital world we inhabit.

It’s changing of course. And I’m hugely encouraged by this latest study. But we still have some way to go.

Background to the IAB/PwC Mobile Study

The IAB has been working with PwC since 1997 to survey the value of the online advertising market. This is the third time they have collaborated to find out the size of mobile advertising in the UK. Eighteen companies have participated in the survey, representing hundreds of websites. Total advertising revenue is reported on a gross basis. The figures are based on participants’ data and modelling and industry estimates.

comScore: Comparative Report on Mobile Usage in Japan, United States and Europe

Japan Mobile Audience “Most Connected” with 3 of 4 Users Accessing Mobile Media in June 2010. Social Networking Shows Highest Reach among U.S. Mobile Users, While Europeans Text the Most.

comScore’s latest report from its MobiLens service examined multiple dimensions of mobile usage between Japan, US and Europe including content consumption, demographic comparisons and top social networking brands across markets to provide a comparative look at how consumers interact with mobile media across various geographic markets.

“Mobile media usage continues to accelerate across the globe, driven by advancing technologies and the growing number of content options available to consumers,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. “As we look across markets, dramatic differences in mobile media consumption, brand adoption and user behaviour become evident. These differences are even more pronounced than they are for PC-based Internet usage due to the complex nature of mobile – including various device capabilities, operating systems and methods of accessing content. For brands seeking to establish a multi-market presence, understanding usage dynamics across geographies is essential to implementing a successful global mobile marketing strategy.”

Mobile Behaviour Varies Across Markets

A cross-market analysis of mobile activities in Japan, the U.S. and Europe revealed significant differences among consumers by geography. Mobile users in Japan were the “most connected” of the three markets, with more than 75 percent using connected media (browsed, accessed applications or downloaded content) in June, compared to 43.7 percent in the U.S. and 38.5 percent in Europe. (I’m wondering what the range is across the different European countries. And I wonder if this would be further skewed if it was beyond the EU5 of UK, Spain, France, Germany and Italy.)

Japanese mobile users also displayed the strongest usage of both applications and browsers with 59.3 percent of the entire mobile population accessing their browsers in June and 42.3 percent accessing applications. Comparatively 34.0 percent of mobile users in the U.S. and 25.8 percent in Europe used their mobile browsers, with 31.1 percent in the U.S. and 24.9 percent in Europe accessing applications.

Messaging methods also varied with Europeans displaying the strongest use of text messaging with 81.7 percent sending a text message in June, compared to 66.8 percent in the U.S. and just 40.1 percent in Japan. Japanese users exhibited the highest reach in the email category at 54 percent, while consumers in the U.S. were most likely to use instant messaging services on their mobile (17.2 percent). (With the introduction of i-mode in Japan, peer to peer messaging was based on email rather than SMS so these figures are not the least bit surprising. Europe was the first to adopt SMS and the US was pretty late to the game to implement cross network compatibility for SMS, hence the lower figures.)

Social networking/blogs reached the greatest percentage of mobile users in the U.S. at 21.3 percent, followed by Japan at 17.0 percent and Europe at 14.7 percent. Japanese users were most likely to capture photos (63.0 percent) and watch TV/video (22.0 percent) on their mobiles, while Europeans were most likely to listen to music (24.2 percent) and play games (24.1 percent).

Select Mobile Behaviours in Japan, United States and EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT). June 2010. Total Mobile Audience Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens

Percent of Total Mobile Audience	Japan	US	Europe
Total Audience: 13+ yrs old	100%	100%	100%
Used connected media (Browsed, Accessed Applications or Downloaded Content)	75.2%	43.7%	38.5%
Used browser	59.3%	34.0%	25.8%
Used application	42.3%	31.1%	24.9%
Messaging Usage
Sent text message to another phone	40.1%	66.8%	81.7%
Used instant messaging service	3.3%	17.2%	12.6%
Used email (work or personal)	54.0%	27.9%	18.8%
Social Media/Entertainment
Accessed Social Networking Site/ Blog	17.0%	21.3%	14.7%
Listened to music on mobile phone	12.5%	13.9%	24.2%
Took photos	63.0%	50.6%	56.8%
Captured video	15.4%	19.2%	25.8%
Watched TV and/or video on mobile	22.0%	4.8%	5.4%
Played games	16.3%	22.5%	24.1%
Financial Information
Accessed bank accounts	8.0%	9.4%	7.1%
Accessed financial news/stock quotes	16.1%	10.0%	7.2%
Retail/Travel
Accessed online retail	7.2%	5.5%	4.1%
Accessed classifieds	4.2%	6.6%	4.2%
Accessed travel service	3.3%	4.7%	4.1%
Other
Accessed maps	15.7%	16.0%	10.8%
Accessed traffic reports	12.6%	8.2%	5.9%
Accessed weather	34.1%	22.3%	13.7%

Mobile Media Usage by Demographic Segment

A demographic analysis of mobile media users across markets showed that mobile media consumption was more balanced across age segments in Japan when compared to the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S., 25-34 year olds were 44 percent more likely to access mobile media than an average mobile user, with 18-24 year olds 39 percent more likely. In Europe, 18-24 year olds represented the most-connected segment, 54 percent more likely to be mobile media users, while persons age 25-34 were 35 percent more likely.

The U.S. and Europe also showed greater gender disparity among mobile media audiences. Females were 9 percent less likely to be mobile media users in the U.S., while females in Europe were 16 percent less likely.

Mobile Media Usage in Japan, United States and EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT) by Demographic Segment. June 2010. Source: comScore MobiLens. Connected Media Audience Index*

	Japan	US	Europe
Total Audience: 13+ yrs old	100%	100%	100%
Male	102	110	116
Female	98	91	84
Person’s Age:
13-17	114	130	133
18-24	117	139	154
25-34	114	144	135
35-44	111	117	103
45-54	105	85	78
55+	80	39	57

* Index = % demographic segment / % demographic base*100

Top Mobile Social Media Brands

Across markets, local and global brands showed varying levels of adoption by mobile audiences. In all three markets, the top mobile social media brand mirrored the top PC-based social networking brand with Facebook leading in the U.S. and Europe and Mixi leading in Japan. Local brands Gree and Mobage Town were the #2 and #4 most accessed social networking brands in Japan. Twitter was the only brand to be ranked in the top four in all markets.

Top Mobile Social Networking/Chat/Blog Brands in Japan, United States and EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT) by Audience Size June 2010. Total Mobile Audience Age 13+. Source: comScore MobiLens

Japan	US	Europe
Mixi	Facebook	Facebook
Gree	MySpace	YouTube
Twitter	YouTube	MSN /Windows Live/ Bing
Mobage Town	Twitter	Twitter

Update 11 October 2010: Friend and mobilist, Kei Shimada, who is based in Tokyo commented on the above from comScore and says: "Somehow I very much doubt the outcome of this report. Banking services can't be this high, because of the lack of banking services in Japan on mobile. Much more versatile abroad. Other financial services, I agree somewhat.
Text messaging in Japan at 40.1% is still very high even if its the lowest among the 3 regions, as its almost non-existent because of interoperability issues among carriers, and email being dominant. By the way, email is "free" (included in data plan) in Japan, and not charged like SMS is abroad.
Social Networking Sites can't be this low comparatively, among the (especially) US and EU, with 120+ billion PV per month on the big 3 SNS in Japan.
Japan is the most connected, I agree, but the details are a very odd."

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and the preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit http://eml.mailingsvcs.com/trk/r.emt?h=www.comscore.com/companyinfo&t=eJAhIQ&e=XUldihL9+mg.

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Technorati Tags: statistics,mobile usage

Some links for your delectation

New slides from Comscore’s GSMA Mobile Media Metrics (MMM) Mobile World Congress Seminar http://bit.ly/cXBF4A – good to see this initiative for measuring audiences and mobile marketing and advertising at operator level. One to keep an eye on.

John Strand on Nokia "....Bees don't go for the biggest garden, they go for the most beautiful flowers," http://bit.ly/aQ4t9m – a look at smartphone operating systems and who might win the race. (Thanks to Russell Buckley for the tip-off.)

Is a 21-hour working week a real possibility? Well the NEF seem to think so. And although I missed the event yesterday lunchtime at the RSA, the free accompanying report ‘The 21 hour society’ is worth a read. I’m eagerly awaiting the audio of the event to listen to.

My favourite post about Mobile World Congress 2010 from Tim Green at Mobile Entertainment Magazine ‘The Muggers have got into La Fira and stolen all the minutes from operators’.

Technorati Tags: linkage,mobile,MWC10,MWC,Mobile World congress,Comscore,Nokia

Reality check time – US customers

It’s very easy to get carried away and think the iPhone is the be-all and end-all when it comes to mobile devices, but the fact is, it’s just not true. Sure, the iPhone punches above its weight when it comes to mobile data usage, applications, length of use and so on. I don’t deny that. But the reality is that most customers do not have an iPhone. Comscore’s latest research into US customers bears this out.

So unlike Europe and pretty much the rest of the world, it’s still all about Motorola in the US. And looking at smartphones specifically, it’s all about BlackBerry.

OEM Market Share

A total of 234 million people age 13 and older in the U.S. used mobile devices in December 2009. Device manufacturer Motorola was the top ranked OEM with 23.5 percent of U.S. mobile devices. LG ranked second with 21.9 percent share, followed by Samsung (21.2 percent share), Nokia (9.2 percent share) and RIM (7.0 percent share).

 Smartphone Platform Market Share

RIM was the leading mobile smartphone operating system in the U.S. in December 2009 with 41.6 percent share of U.S. smartphone devices. Apple ranked second with 25.3 percent share (up 1.2 percentage points), followed by Microsoft with 18.0 percent share, Palm with 6.1 percent share, and Google with 5.2 percent share (up 2.7 percentage points).

Mobile Content Usage

In December 2009, 63.1 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers used text messaging on their mobile device, up 2.1 percentage points from three months prior. Browsers were used by 27.5 percent of U.S. mobile subscribers (up 1.5 percentage points), while subscribers who played games made up 21.6 percent (up 0.2 percentage points).

Interesting, very interesting.

Source: comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR). A global leader in measuring the digital world and preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Technorati Tags: statistics,usa

Essential reading from Tomi Ahonen – the Almanac 2010

Tomi’s done it again. He’s published his 2010 Almanac – a veritable smorgasbord of stats, information, graphs, charts, facts, figures and insight into the world of mobile. It’s 180 pages of mobile goodness, including 84 charts, sized to work as an ebook on your smartphone as well as your laptop. Very neat.

It is, in my view, essential reading for anyone with an interest in the world of mobile. Data in the e-book includes - Size of Mobile Industry; Customers; Handsets and Smartphones; Mobile Messaging including SMS and MMS; Mobile Internet; 7th Mass Medium; Music on Mobile; TV and Video; Gaming; Social Networking; Other services including News, Jokes, Adult, App Stores etc; Mobile Advertising; Voice calls; Enterprise services; Network Infrastructure; Digital Divide; and a Historical Timeline.

There is tabular data included - Index of Mobile Leadership for the 30 most advanced countries; major comparative data on 60 major mobile countries; the 25 countries with largest subscriber counts and 25 with highest penetration rates per capita; plus 25 countries with highest rate of 3G migration. Plus the 20 biggest mobile operator Groups.

The whole document is available for immediate download, has been released today, and costs only 9.99 Euros. The only place you can order it (it is not available at major booksellers like Amazon) is Tomi’s company website. 

Wanna know more and order it? – then check it out here.

Enjoy. I know I will!

Technorati Tags: tomi ahonen,almanac,statistics,mobile,2010

SMS continues to grow in the UK

The Mobile Data Association has released it’s latest SMS and MMS usage figures for the UK. And interesting reading they are too. MMS or picture messaging is still a tiny proportion of overall messaging, but it is there and it is increasing.

According to the MDA, the continued growth of messaging is highlighted by a 2009 daily average of 265 million text messages and 1.6 million picture messages. 2009’s text message total was 96.8 billion (a 23% increase on 2008), while over 600 million picture messages were sent across the whole year.

Seasonal drivers still appear to propel the use of Picture Messaging, with 4.5 million picture messages being sent on Christmas Day itself – hence the spike in traffic in December -  while Network Operators’ figures also indicated an upturn in picture messaging during the recent cold snap. I’m guessing lots of people were comparing the snow in their area with friends and family.

Text messaging traffic over the recent festive period continued to rise proportionately.

Christmas Day    Increase on      NYE/ Day      Increase on 
2009                       2008                       2009/10                  2008
441,805,870          31%                   874,033,799               21% 

Assessing the findings of the MDA’s report, Rob Bamforth, Principal Analyst at Quocirca, said: "New generation touchscreen handsets and the bundling of SMS messages into many tariffs has made texting easier, and seen its role develop. Now it is not only a convenient medium for a quick chat with friends, but also a way of participating in television voting and raising funds for needy charities. When a powerful call to action is given, the population of the UK often turn first towards their mobile phones." This is borne out with the recent campaigns to raise funds for BBC Children in Need and the DEC appeal for Haiti.

Q4 2009 Statistical findings

Text Messaging (SMS)

Total number of text messages (SMS) sent in:
2009 total 96.8 billion
2008 total 78.9 billion
2007 total 56.9 billion

Video and Picture messages (MMS)

Campaigns like the Radio 1 Free MMS Day appear to have had an effect on the figures by attracting 42,000 messages to the BBC radio station in just 24 hours with viewers contributing to an online mosaic of all their images (moderated of course). Let’s see if MMS continues to grow in 2010. The growth rate between 2008 and 2009 was just 9%, averaging 1.6m MMS per day. However, I’m in no doubt that SMS will continue to grow in 2010 and beyond.

Total number of picture messages (MMS) sent in:
2009 total 601 million
2008 total 553 million
2007 total 449 million

 

 

Source: Mobile Data Association / Text.It

Technorati Tags: sms,mms,messaging,picture messaging,text messaging,statistics,mda,text.it,mobile

Links ‘n stuff cos it’s Wednesday

As usual I have too many browser tabs and emails open so it’s time to close them down by documenting them here. Forgive them being a bit random but hopefully there’s a few things here that might catch your eye to take a further look.

T-Mobile is using bluetooth to attract customers into store with special offers. I’ve written about bluetooth marketing bluespam before. On private property, I have no problem with it but when it’s catching random people in the street, because they happen to have their bluetooth switched on it makes me feel uncomfortable. Anyway, it seems T-Mobile doesn’t feel uncomfortable with it (or uncufderbull as my 8 year old neighbour once wrote to me describing his boarding school bed).

BMW spend $30k on an engaging MMS campaign and sell $45 million of accessories to existing customers… now that’s pretty cool.

Young people who embrace technology can feel overconnected (well, I would add, that you don’t need to be a teenager to feel this – I’m definitely in that number… I’m frequently overwhelmed by information and communication coming in at me from all directions).

The latest Pew Internet Report is out. Essential reading for all folks working or interested in digital and mobile.

The economic downturn bodes well for mobile couponing companies according to RCR Wireless. I suspect few of the services on offer are really delivering on the mobile couponing promise – I know a thing or two about mobile coupons and there are a lot of skittles to get in a row before it succeeds. That said, Planet Funk sees 377% ROI on their mobile couponing promotion so when you get it right, it can be very powerful.

Orange UK also announces key findings from their mobile marketing research:

• 81% of mobile media users access mobile media once a week with strong usage in the home, as well as on public transport and around town
• Mobile media users are very much open to mobile marketing with 70% of participants attracted by interactive marketing formats
• The most popular forms of mobile marketing currently are click-through advertisements and voucher redemption codes
• Mobile is viewed as the most innovative and personal media channel compared to all other traditional and digital channels

Other key findings on mobile media usage included:

• The average age for mobile media users is 36, and 81% use mobile media more than once a week with 46% using it daily
• Men generally use mobile media more, although women are much more likely to use picture messaging
• The mobile internet pages viewed most often are search engines, email, news, music and film although, interestingly, a high proportion (55%) of people browse the mobile internet with no specific agenda, providing an opportunity for marketers to attract their attention

The research also confirms that customers are after value and relevance. No big surprise there then. Marketers take note.

Technorati Tags: mobile marketing,mobile media,research,mobile internet,mobile coupons,bluetooth,bluespam,MMS

Tuesday linkage

It is Tuesday right? And it is March already (how did that happen)? So it must be time for some links.

This is an interesting post from the Admob blog about iphone advertisers best practice. I would say that quite a few of those tips and hints are relevant for anyone doing stuff in mobile advertising. It’s not exactly rocket science (but then mobile advertising isn’t) but it’s good to be reminded of the simple stuff every now and then. And this is a great checklist.

Bango is also running an interesting experiment in running a mobile website, Mobislim. They have a real mobile website set up and are sharing all the analytics, results, learnings and more with their audience in a blog format. If you are a mobile webmaster looking to commercialise your offering, this is well worth keeping an eye on.

If stats are your thing then have a look at MSearchGroove’s post covering stats around mobile web traffic, mobile search and advertising. Peggy Anne Salz has some interesting insight and links to share.

There was a little flurry of excitement about Process Away recently and their iphone App. Agreed, it looks really good and looks like a great solution to be able to take payments at your live event without a huge investment in hardware, software, wifi and the rest. That I don’t doubt. But who are they and why would I trust them with my money? And even looking at the FAQs, that doesn’t reassure me much. Seeing as folks making business decisions about technology are very often  not technologists, the technology jargon about security is meaningless. Some explanation of who you are, some reassurance that customer’s money is safe, some reassurance of how the service is underwritten and this could be a real goer. Or am I being a curmudgeon here?

I’ve been asked to be a judge for 2009’s Mobile Messaging Awards which is very exciting. Get those entries in! I’m also judging this year’s Webby Awards… still very North American in its focus which is a shame as I firmly believe there is mobile talent beyond those shores. I guess there’s always next year to enter…

Technorati Tags: links,mobile,statistics,m-commerce,m-payments,m-retail,m-transactions,awards,160characters,mobile web,mobile internet,admob,mobile advertising,iphone

Did you know…

The lovely folks at Sharpcards just emailed me with some insight into the global messaging market and I thought you’d be interested to see what they had to share…

The mobile messaging market raked in around $130 billion in revenues by the end 2008, and is on target to increase that to $224 billion by 2013. Although the majority of this is made up by SMS, the popularity of MMS has been increasing steadily over the past few years. In 2009 MMS is expected to generate over $31 billion worldwide, $1 billion more than SMS was generating five years ago. MMS is also being predicted to pass 115 billion messages by the end of 2011 according to Portio Research last November.

In 2008 Sharpcards (the enhanced mobile messaging people) sold over 1.5m mobile personal greetings worldwide, with around 20% of those sales (300,000) coming from Valentine's Day alone. Key trends from last year:

• 40% of mobile ecards were bought in the four hours between 08:00 and 12:00 (around 30,000 greetings sold per hour)
• 56% of sales occurred before midday and less than 2% after 22:00 – there are some of us who obviously like to live dangerously
• It seems that most people in the world are soft at heart, with cute and cuddly outselling kinky cards by 3-1 in 2008
• Sharpcards sent 363 marriage proposals through mobile ecards on Valentines Day 2008: Perhaps not the most traditional way to 'pop the question' and I wonder how many of the answers were ‘yes’?

Hmm, that’s quite a lot of messaging going on out there.

Technorati Tags: mms,sms,messaging,ecards,statistics

It’s Monday, there must be some (mobile) stuff going on

It’s Monday night and normally at this time, I would be concluding our Mobile Monday session in anticipation of chat and mingling at the bar afterwards. However, due to an inordinate amount of snow (there’s over a foot of it in my garden in South West London) and a distinct lack of public transport available, we’ve had to postpone tonight’s event until next week. So rather than deprive you of your mobile fix entirely, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve been reading about mobile-wise of late.

Long form video content appeals which surprises those who are still fixated on the ‘snacking’ element of mobile entertainment. Of course there is still a case for ‘snacking’ on mobile, but much mobile internet usage, especially since the advent of the iphone, is actually at home and complementing other media usage. There’s more discussion about there being more than one mobile context here.

If mobile entertainment, video or otherwise, is your bag, then you could do worse than head to London to see Ralph Simon in action at E.Factor’s event on 23rd February. It’s free for members to attend and £28 for non-members.

Tonight, we *had* planned to talk about the role of widgets in the future of the mobile web. Instead, you’ll have to make do with Vodafone Betavine’s widget competition. Betavine, a Vodafone Group R&D lab, is offering mobile developers a chance to win £20,000 in a new mobile widget competition. The competition opens today and runs until 30th April. The rules are very simple and seems like a great opportunity to me.

Opera claims that 9 out of 10 mobile internet users are male. I think this research is somewhat skewed. Research I’ve been looking at shows that smartphone usage, including the iphone, is heavily male skewed which probably explains the figures that Opera is reporting. Overall, however, the mobile internet is older and more female than you might expect. At least that’s what the nice people at m:metrics shared with me recently.

And last but not least…

Despite the snow, my friend, Oli Barrett, made a valiant effort at the crack of dawn to launch his Make Your Mark With a Tenner competition. Possibly not the best day of the year to choose to launch your new campaign, but nevertheless, it’s got picked up on by The Telegraph. It’s a really simple premise, 25,000 kids will get given a tenner and a month to go and make money with it. Oli explains it all here.

Technorati Tags: mobile,opera,opera mini,statistics,report,video,entertainment,mobile content,links,linkage