Weekly Mobile Mash-up #5

The best of last week’s mobile industry news selected by the ON team!

Mobile Industry News

• BBC on Android: Good news for sport and BBC lovers: BBC iPlayer is at last available on Android, but restricted to Android 2.2 and wifi connection only - http://bit.ly/cexrZF
• A new social network? According to Digg’s CEO Kevin Rose, Google is about to launch its own social network, Google Me - http://bit.ly/d8kLjP
• ON new release: Last week, we launched a new version of the Life Is Better ON Android app, with lots of new features and bug fixes - http://bit.ly/ON1-3
• Android’s latest (and impressive) figures: Andy Rubin announced last week that 160,000 Android devices are activated every day. Last May during Google’s IO, only 100,000 Android devices were activated every day. Rubin also said that 68,000 applications were available on Android Market – http://bit.ly/9JqzWo
• Apple’s stories
  • iPhone’s launch met with huge worldwide success last week: 1.7 million sold in 3 days - http://bit.ly/bU6CTo
  • Some criticisms came up around signal reception problems, an iOS4.1 should solve it - http://bit.ly/aAynOT
  • iSupply says that an iPhone costs $187.51 for Apple to make – http://bit.ly/bKCYTv
  • 77% of iPhone 4 buyers owned a previous iPhone version – http://bit.ly/cTl21J
  • 81% of downloaded iPhone apps are free – http://bit.ly/dyLfEm
  • Apple also announced they sold 3 million iPads in 80 days, and that 11,000 iPad optimized applications are currently available on the app store – http://bit.ly/aKWcIW
• Nokia’s new strategy: After their latest profit warning, Nokia have announced their switch from Symbian to MeeGo OS for their Nseries devices, but sticking to Symbian OS for their lower range phones – http://bit.ly/aYJB4U
  If you want to know more about Nokia’s strategy, have a look at this interesting Slideshare from Graham Brown’s about Nokia and the younger demographic

• HP mobile and web investments: Two months after Palm purchase, HP acquired the music streaming website Melodeo. HP is clearly looking to build a new portfolio of web and mobile activities – http://bit.ly/bAW9ng
• RIM sold its 100 millionth Blackberry - http://bit.ly/djlEzC

Mobile statistics and reports

• iPhone’s impact in Europe: the iPhone representing 18% of the overall EU5 (the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy) smartphone market according to comScore. The study also highlighted the iPhone’s impact on mobile users’ media consumption - http://bit.ly/bJYDvo
  • 87% use applications and 85% browse the mobile internet. iPhone users represent 12 percent of all mobile media users whereas it represents only 4% of smartphone market
  • The other big news of this study is the 2429% increase of Android users in Europe, from April 2009 to April 2010

• Mobile navigation: 33.5 million US mobile users accessed maps on their devices in April 2010, up 44% compared to April 2009 - http://bit.ly/d8Gujy
  • 19% of smartphone users accessed maps through applications and 19% via their mobile browser
• Mobile Money
  • Juniper Research’s Mobile Banking Goes Mainstream white paper predicted mobile banking to double in the next three years, from 200 million this year to 400 million in 2013 – http://bit.ly/dnUO6W
  • In 2010, mobile payments should exceed 100 million users worldwide according to Gartner, a 54% increase compared to 2009.  This figure represents 2.1% of mobile users  worldwide – http://bit.ly/cV7zh9
  • Bloomberg Business week published a report about mobile-commerce, and Frank Reed from Marketing Pilgrim analyzed eBay’s mobile strategy. Well worth a read to understand some of the reasons behind their success! – http://bit.ly/bhJCWp
• Developers’ choice: Appcelerator published its Developers survey, showing that iOS and Android are the most popular platforms (both for phones and tablets) and to a lesser extent, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7 – http://bit.ly/brKHGx

• Consumers’ choice: A Nielsen report pointed out the differences between iPhone and Android users – http://bit.ly/dycdwm. Conclusions are:
  • Less than 34 years old are more likely to buy an Android phone than an iPhone.
  • Rich people are more likely to get an iPhone than an Android phone.
  • Android users text; iPhone users email
  • iPhone users are more likely to play games online
• Interesting facts from Opera’s State of the Mobile Web: 8pm to midnight are the day’s prime mobile browsing hours for users except in the UK and China, where daytime/evening usage is about even. Opera Mini now has 61 million users – http://bit.ly/aHfuM0