Recent research carried out by Nielsen has indicated that smartphone usage in the UK is on the up from Q2 09… but just barely.
In the UK the number of people using smartphones had moved from 8.8million in Q2 to 10.4million in Q3. The Vice President of mobile media at Nielsen commented: “Although there have been sizeable increases in the take-up of new mobile technologies, such as video and location-based services they remain niche forms of behaviour. Although the era of the handset as a truly multimedia device on a mass-market level lies somewhere on the horizon, the key for companies to successfully harness mobile lies in a realistic understanding of what media activities people on a large-scale are actually doing on their handsets now.”
In reality a small proportion of the population are engaging with their mobile devices with things like video, with most opting to occasionally browse the web. It is obvious therefore that text messaging is still the most important way for advertisers to reach their customers.
As a whole smartphones have crept from a market share of 14% to just over 15% over the last quarter, and the much lauded iPhone hold just 19% of this share. Therefore those marketers choosing to pursue iPhone apps over SMS are in reality resigning themselves to communicating with just 19% of 15%… or 2.85% of all phone users in the UK.
That choice seems somewhat unwise when compared to the 100% of phones that can receive SMS messages!
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