comScore recently released a new report highlighting several key trends in the U.S. smartphone industry that companies considering developing mobile applications should consider.
Apple is ranked as the top smartphone manufacturer with 39% of the market share. Samsung follows in second place with a 23% of the market share, HTC is in third with 8.7%, Motorola follows with 7.8% and LG comes in with 6.7%.
Android continues to led as the top smartphone platform with 52% of the market share. Clearly neither of these platforms can be ignored when it comes to mobile application development.
The most interesting point from the new comScore report is the growth of the U.S. smartphone market itself. 141 million people in the U.S. alone now own smartphones (59% of the market, as of the end of May 2013). This number is up 6% since February 2013 making for some incredible growth numbers.
In a recent study by International Data Corporation, they conclude that number of smartphones to be sold around the globe in 2013 will surpass the sales of basic feature phones. The massive growth of these devices highlights the need for businesses to have a solid plan for mobile application development (on both of the major platforms, businesses can’t ignore either iPhone applications or Android applications) and a mobile web site.
Sales of smartphones will increase 32.7 percent for this year over 2012, with forecasts from the International Data Corporation, predicting 958.8 million units to be shipped, compared with 722.5 million units in 2012. The decline in smartphone prices is believed to have been a major factor driving growth. In 2011, the average smartphone price was $443, by 2012 that number dropped to $407 and in 2013 it is predicted to finish at about $372. In the future it is expected that prices will drop even further and by 2017, the average smartphone price is forecast to drop to $309.
International Data Corporation predicts that smartphones will account for 52.2 percent of all mobile phone shipments by the end of 2013. Ramon Llamas, a research manager at IDC, even was willing to describe 2013 as a “watershed year for smartphones.” An interesting trend is that nearly two-thirds of all smartphones bought in the world in 2013 will be purchased by people in developing countries, says the IDC, whereas this number was just 43% in 2010. This is assumed to be driven by price reduction as well. “Smartphones have become increasingly common in emerging markets and it is often the first affordable means of computing for these markets,” said Ryan Reith, IDC program manager. “These are markets where average personal income is far less than in developed markets, and therefore vendors have been forced to create smartphone computing experiences for the low end of the market.”
Clearly businesses must address the shift occurring the market and look at the demographics of their target market. Mobile applications and web sites are increasingly important with each new year as we see smartphones continue to proliferate the market.
Not surprisingly luxury advertisers have embraced mobile and are flocking to mobile applications, mobile web sites and mobile advertising. According to a recent study conducted by Martini Media and iMedia UK where they surveyed UK marketing professionals about how they are allocating their marketing budgets for the demographic containing wealthy consumers mobile is rapidly becoming the medium of choice right now.
In fact, mobile advertising has grown an amazing 148% year-over-year in Great Britain recently and and UK marketing professionals have been moving steadily towards a mobile-first strategy. This is even more so the case in the luxury market as we see that luxury marketers are now investing heavily in mobile along with big increases in video and rich media formats. Mobile applications and mobile optimized web sites are a perfect fit for sophisticated consumers with high end smartphones.
At this point almost half of all marketing budgets (48 percent) are slated be spent on digital media in 2013, with a huge majority (95 percent) of respondents claiming they increased their digital marketing budgets in 2013 by an average of 22% over the past year. Not surprisingly we see standard display marketing tactics have fallen out of favor and spend there will decrease. Brands that identify as targeting high-income consumers plan on spending more than 2X as much on video and nearly twice as much on rich media and mobile compared to with mass-market brands. Which makes perfect sense as luxury brands can really benefit from these mediums being used to showcase their products.
When it comes to choosing the medium for digital campaigns, the ability to single out a target audience was ranked as the key factor for the choice. Digital’s ability to target clearly offers advantages that luxury brands are willing to pay for to reach the right audience.