Each week the MEF team curates mobile stories from around the world. Essential news, the latest market insight & data nuggets, the Global News Round-up offers an instant international mobile content and commerce snapshot.
Global News Stories
20 Per Cent of UK’s Online Christmas Sales will be Mobile
Mobile Marketing Magazine
UK consumers will make 20.4 per cent of their online Christmas purchases using their mobile in 2013, according to Adobe. The projected average across Europe is 12.4 per cent, growth of 68 per cent from 2012. While in the US, 14.4 per cent of online sales are expected to be made online, a 40 per cent increase from last year. If these rates of growth continue, Europe may exceed even the US in mobile shopping next year, according to Adobe’s Online Shopping Forecast.
Windows Phone Still Making Inroads In Europe, Now Accounts For 1 In 10 Smartphone Sales, Says Report
Tech Crunch
Windows Phone is continuing to make inroads into the European smartphone market, according to the latest smartphone sales data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, for the three months to September 2013. Kantar’s data shows that Microsoft’s mobile OS now makes up one in 10 smartphone sales across the five major European markets (Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and Spain).
Samsung grabs top spot in Chinese mobile race, beating out local players
Memeburn
Those tireless number crunchers at Canalys have come out with a new report on the global smartphone market in August to September (Q3) this year. It shows that 100-million smartphones shipped in the Greater China region (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) in that period, with that area recording the highest growth (up 64% year-on-year) anywhere in the world.
The Mobile Banking Horse Race Has Only Just Begun, Here’s How It’s Shaping Up
Business Insider
Banks compete vigorously to differentiate themselves in order to gain greater market share and enlarge their deposit base. That’s why mobile has becomes so important. It’s the next battleground for consumers, and banks are rolling out the latest and greatest smartphone apps and mobile site features to gain an edge on the competition.
The banks that establish a reputation for mobile innovation now may benefit in the future from greater market share and more engaged — and high-margin — customers.
Read More… (report)
Sales of used 3G handsets on the rise
Daily Star
The sales of secondhand smartphones are increasing as the third generation (3G) mobile technology was launched by the private mobile operators recently. Buying and selling second-hand mobile devices have become easier with the presence of online marketplaces such as bikroy.com or cellbazaar.
At the same time, people also directly sell and buy second-hand phones in shops. According to Bikroy.com, advertisements for 3G-supported phones rose 20 percent in between July and September this year, a rate that was never seen before.
Make mobiles part of NBN: telco boss
The Austrailian
VODAFONE Australia boss Bill Morrow has called on the government to expand its National Broadband Network strategy to include mobile services, to improve phone coverage and download speeds in the bush. Writing in The Australian today, Mr Morrow says it would be folly for the Abbott government’s new-look NBN to ignore the explosive growth of internet-enabled mobile devices. He urges the Coalition to include new policy to boost mobile infrastructure across the nation.
Anti-fraud service compares location of ATM with location of phone
Mobile Money Revolution
The main objective here is to crack down on fraud in which cash is withdrawn from overseas cash tills. But this is tricky as customers get frustrated at having legitimate transactions checked or stalled by nervy banks. So this idea from FICO and UK identity specialist ValidSoft uses the proximity of the phone as proof the withdrawal is legit.
App Indexing, Predictive Services, And Unlocking Mobile Distribution
Tech Crunch
There is a “perfect storm” brewing in consumer mobile: Developers, companies, and investors see the explosive growth of smartphones (with no sign of slowing down), yet consumers only have so much bandwidth to interact with a small set of apps, let alone enough time in the day for another app. Consumer eyeballs are fixated on smartphones, triggering once-in-a-lifetime opportunities for application creators to reinvent products, interactions, and industries, but tragically, limited means of getting their creations discovered, or reengaged with, or paid through them.
Mobile’s Big 10 in Q3, 2013
Mobile Marketing Magazine
Last quarter, we began a regular feature comparing the financial results of ten of the biggest companies currently operating in the mobile industry. With Q3’s results now behind us, we returned to see what’s changed, and what’s the same – and look at the where soon-to-be-public Twitter fits in.
The biggest earner, across the board, was Samsung, for the second quarter running. At 59 trillion Korean Won ($55.7bn, £34.7bn) its revenues were much higher than Apple’s ($37.5bn), but profits were just narrowly ahead ($7.8m, compared to $7.5m) – something which reflects the impressive margins on Apple’s devices.
Global News Round-up – These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.
