The yr 2011 was marked with more innovations and tendencies within the cellular space than ever earlier. With healthful increase prices recorded in 2011 and positive predictions for the following few years, 2012 seems like the yr of even greater thrilling cell trends.
A big selection of factors contributed to the global boom of cell programs (apps) adoption in 2011. Among them is an advancement of community technology, reduced cell information utilization charges, multiplied utilization of smartphones, restructuring of the revenue-sharing styles, and a notably improved complete or partial subsidy of apps through cellular marketing options.
According to the Mobile Stats and Facts 2011, of the world’s four billion cell phones in use, around 1.1 billion had been smartphones. In Q1 2011, the worldwide cell phone market ballooned with a 19.Eight% boom rate year-over-yr because of a sizable upward push in smartphone shipments. As expected, with the aid of IDC’s Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker, carriers shipped 371. Eight million gadgets in Q1 2011 compared to 310.5 million devices in Q1 2010. In North America, the cellular telephone marketplace became saved the front and middle through Apple’s iPhone and HTC Thunderbolt. Simultaneously, as in Western Europe, it changed into dominated mainly by using new devices from HTC, Samsung, and Sony Ericsson.
On the global scale, Nokia took the leading function in cargo volumes and marketplace proportion (although the latter dropped from 34.7% to 29.2 % year-over-yr), observed by using Samsung. Apple maintained its spot #4 on IDC’s list of Top 5 Mobile Vendors.
The breaking information of 2011 turned into the launch of the partnership between Nokia and Microsoft in an try and regained floor lost to the iPhone and Android-based devices. The new strategy means Symbian and MeeGo, Nokia’s current telephone running structures, could be step by step sidelined. Symbian is currently transformed right into a “franchise platform,” while “MeeGo will region increased emphasis on longer-term marketplace exploration of next-technology devices,” in line with the company statement. However, Nokia nonetheless expects to sell about 150 million greater Symbian devices within the destiny.
Regarding the overall cell usage styles of 2011, 61% of human beings said using their cell gadgets to play video games, 50% – to do the internet seek, 49% – to get right to entry to social media, 36% – to examine the news and 33% – for general amusement functions.
In 2011, over one-0.33 of Facebook’s six hundred million user base used Facebook mobile apps, 50% of Twitter’s one hundred sixty-five million user base used Twitter Mobile, and over two hundred million YouTube perspectives passed off cellular gadgets every day. Overall, 30% of all telephone proprietors accessed their social media bills through cellular browsers in 2011.
In 2011, many huge manufacturers began mixing cell technologies with their enterprise dreams to increase their presence in, as a minimum, one of the pinnacle app stores. This has spread new horizons for already booming cellular apps markets and growing new venues for further market development. On the other hand, most of those brands did not aim to monetize their apps and best used them to upload as much as their emblem equity. Last yr, the Apple App Store remained the general chief and the “save of choice” for both manufacturers and users. On the other hand, Android Market has won a big floor with 50% of the worldwide brands preferring to submit their apps to it at some point in 2011. The newly introduced Amazon App Store has won 14% of the emblem cell apps’ publications in the most effective three months of being around.
The global mobile app market turned into estimated at $6.8 billion in 2011, in keeping with Markets & Markets, a US-based totally research firm. It is anticipated to grow progressively to reach $25 billion over the following four years, with the Apple App Store accounting for 20.5% of the wholesales.
According to iSuppli, an IHS-owned market research firm, the collective revenues from Apple, Google, Nokia, and Blackberry app shops grew around 78% in 2011 from 2009 and are predicted to attain $eight.Three billion in 2014.
In 2011, Apple held the important cell apps market proportion in phrases of the revenue generated.
However, in phrases of cellular app downloads, Android outpaced Apple, keeping with the facts from ABI studies.
8 Trends That Ruled The Global Mobile Market In 2011
1. Near Field Communications (NFC) Technology
In 2011 Sprint Nextel joined forces with a ramification of handset makers and generation companies to enforce NFC price systems. Google used VeriFone Systems and ViVOtech software to run the check service in 5 US towns. The Google NFC-enabled services allowed consumers with specially prepared phones to walk on Google’s Android OS to pay for goods and redeem coupons with their handsets at NFC-equipped cash registers.
2. iPhone 4S
Many expected Apple to introduce its subsequent-era iPhone five within the 2011 “Let’s Talk iPhone” occasion. Instead, Apple unveiled its iPhone 4S, the “smartest” phone ever. Equipped with an 8-megapixel digicam, iCloud capabilities, and Sprint network get admission to, it comes with powerful voice recognition software and different innovative features. Apple mentioned having bought over 4 million of its iPhone 4S devices only 3 days after the authentic launch.
3. QR Codes
2011 was the 12 months of huge use of two-dimensional quick response (QR) codes in virtual and print advertising campaigns. When a code image is captured with the aid of a cellular device or a pill, the consumer gets instantaneous access to an abundance of logos/product information. With QR codes, companies have a miles higher hazard to less complicated and quickly reach their target market and stakeholders.
4. Increased mobile gaming
Games have been the most popular kind of apps amongst telephone users in 2011. According to the state-of-the-art Report by using Nielsen, an ultimate year many cellphone owners had been prepared to honestly pay for mobile games – greater than they might for another app category
5. The Cloud
In 2011, Apple delivered its pretty-anticipated iCloud provider, which allows storing music, pictures, apps, and extra and pushing them routinely to all of the user’s devices through a wi-fi generation. Google released a similar track Cloud service allowing customers to upload their music libraries and flow them from both cell devices and PCs.
More cellular apps are anticipated to move to the cloud inside the close to a destiny with these and other Cloud services. They might be accessed and executed immediately from the Cloud via a cellular Internet browser interface. To facilitate this alteration, several technologies are already used. For instance, HTML5 allows caching on the handset and keeps away from fluctuations in community carrier shipping.
Additionally, in 2011 some cell solutions carriers supplied integrated mobile browsers to allow direct get admission to apps from the publisher’s website and eliminate touring app stores. Both app builders and publishers can now engage immediately without the involvement of / sharing earnings with any 0.33-birthday party app stores.
6. 4G Technologies
In 2011, every mobile service announced its plans to update their networks to one in every of numerous quicker cellular facts technologies inclusive of HSDPA, HSPA+, and 3GPP LTE. The providers’ funding in higher speeds and higher bandwidth will help the industry preserve up with the exploding demand for cellular Internet in 2012. A full-size majority of cellular devices already shipped in 2012 are 4G-enabled, although they absolutely connect with 3G and EDGE networks.
7. Augmented reality
Augmented fact (AR) refers to the addition of a computer-assisted contextual layer of statistics over the actual global, developing a fact this is enhanced or augmented. Although distinctive varieties of AR, which include head-established shows, were around for over 30 years, in 2010 and 2011, AR developed from being a cool system on the periphery of visualization and pics technology to a significant participant in the generation landscape due to the increased bandwidth and adoption of smartphones.
AR proliferates rapidly into numerous domain names from training to tourism / traveling to video production etc. Many AR apps such as Layar use GPS positioning and geo-tagging to annotate present areas with an overlay of facts and 3-d pictures and characters.
8. Mobile advertising and marketing
According to Stephanie Baghdassarian, Research Director at Gartner, “Mobile advertising is now identified as an opportunity for manufacturers, advertisers, and publishers to have interaction clients in a centered and contextual manner, enhancing returns.” In 2011, mobile advertising budgets had been set to grow notably throughout the numerous categories and regions. The worldwide mobile advertisements market generated around $3.3 billion in 2011, greater than double the $1.6 billion generated in 2010.
Mobile Market Expectations For 2012
- In 2012 we can most in all likelihood see:
- – Increased investments in the NFC era across handset makers and providers
- – Improved in-app billing safety
- – More vicinity-primarily based cellular trade solutions permitting customers to test into a shop to alert a retailer in their presence or to feature gadgets to a purchasing cart actually utilizing taking their image or their bar codes image inside the physical keep
- – LTE 4G as a mainstream generation in North America and Western Europe
- – iPads and drugs continuing to update PCs as a business device of choice
- – Apple iPad three and long-awaited iPhone 5 with more suitable functionalities accommodating the high-speed LTE community and NFC technology
- – Enhanced social sharing due to the smartphones’ increase
- – Extended mobile seek to permit customers to have interaction with consequences such as setting an order at once from the cell cellphone, booking a price ticket, or creating a motel reservation
- – Gamification because the final way of enticing a new generation of customers focused on changing their regular reports into game-like interests
- – More item popularity (OR) apps permitting users to music their surroundings for particular gadgets of hobby
- – More unified conversation (UC) customers for cellular on the spot messaging furnished with the aid of over-the-pinnacle provider carriers together with Skype
- – More powerful cellular e-mail answers through a chain of generation upgrades permitting low-cost cell extensions to exist email services (Gartner expects cell e-mail users to account for 10.6% of the global cell person base by using 2014)
- – More corporations developing a strategic approach in the direction of their mobile provider shipping and differentiation (smartphones vs. capsules)
- – Tablet commerce (T-trade) and e-wallet as two new buzz phrases
- – Strategic partnerships between cell vendors and popular video carriers like YouTube or Vimeo to allow customers to replicate their online behaviors on their cellular gadgets
Viktor Bogdanov
PR Manager
Ciklum
About Ciklum:
Ciklum is a Danish revolutionary IT outsourcing organization specializing in nearshore software program improvement in Eastern Europe, Ukraine, and Belarus. Ciklum’s particular enterprise version merges the human element with IT to not simplest help businesses grow but provide ongoing resources that maintain growth with the flexibility to scale up or down as markets shift. Established in 2002, Ciklum employs more than 1,500 IT experts with more than 150 international customers’ very own software improvement teams.
