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
INFOGRAPHIC: MWC 2014 in numbers
Mobile Entertainment
Mobile World Congress is arguably one of the most anticipated tech events of the year, with this year’s line up including Mark Zuckerberg, Samsung’s much desired Galaxy S5 and WhatsApp’s free calling service. Stepping away from the techie side of things, Waggener Edstrom Communications has pulled together an infographic displaying some impressive stats from the event.
Innovation trumps constraints: why retailers are ready for a mobile payment revolution
Memeburn
Retailers and brands are standing on the verge of a veritable mobile payment revolution as mainstream interest and unprecedented ease-of-use drive adoption among consumers. Barriers to entry for retailers wishing to add mobile payment apps to their point-of-sale systems have also been lowered to the point that they are almost non-existent thanks to innovative new technology.
It’s Time to Ditch Your Wallet for Mobile Payments
Mashable
Credit and debit cards have significantly cut back on the amount of cash people carry with them at a given time. But what if you could reduce the number of cards you carry to just one — or even eliminate your wallet entirely?
Read More… (video)
Gartner: 195M Tablets Sold In 2013, Android Grabs Top Spot From iPad With 62% Share
Tech Crunch
A new tipping point in the world of tablets: today the analysts at Gartner have released their tablet sales numbers for 2013, and Android has topped the list for the most popular platform for the first time, outselling Apple’s range of iPad tablets nearly twofold. Of the 195 million tablets sold in 2013, Android took nearly 62% of sales on 121 million tablets, while Apple sold 70 million iPad tablets for a 36% share.
How People Really Shop On Android Phones And iPhones
Business Insider
Last Black Friday, we learned that iOS shoppers blew away Android shoppers in terms of money spent through mobile devices. But while we saw a nice bump that weekend, it’s still clear that conversion rates on smartphones and tablets are much lower than they are on PCs. This chart from Statista breaks it down from the final quarter of last year.
India mulls mobile intercept rules
telecomasia.net
Samsung Electronics’ smartphones account for almost two-thirds of the Android-powered smartphone market, according to Localytics, a global market research firm. The smartphones manufactured by the Korean tech giant snatched up 65 percent of the entire Android market, according to the research firm’s February report. Among the Samsung mobile devices, the Galaxy S series took up 30 percent.
INFOGRAPHIC: The mobile gamer of 2014
Mobile Entertainment
65 per cent of users do not consider themselves a gamer, but play on their mobile for three hours a week, and 20 minutes at a time. Mobile and tablet has brought high quality gaming to our pocket more than any other handheld – opening up the world of computer games to a whole new demographic. 71 per cent of mobile-gamers are over 25 years of age and more than half earn over $50,000 a year. This is very different to the teenager sitting hunched over their device playing Angry Birds during a civilised family dinner, that we all imagine.
World’s biggest telcos working on single mobile check-in
Mobile Money Revolution
If everything’s going to the cloud then reliable safe authentication matters more than anything, right? Today, people check in to access online documents, music, movies, social media and – of course – bank accounts. And we use passwords and PINs that can easily be phished or compromised. Many believe the mobile phone number is a much better way of authenticating yourself.
Mobile Ads Now Pose Bigger Malware Threat Than Porn
Mobile Marketing Magazine
Long the scapegoat of all manner of society’s ills, porn is no longer the source of the largest number of malware problems on mobile, according to security firm Bluecoat. Web ads are now to blame for 20 per cent of mobile malware visits, according to Bluecoat’s analysis of more than 75m smartphone users, growing from just 5.7 per cent in November 2012. Pornography was the biggest driver of malware visits two years ago, at 22 per cent, with web ads coming in fourth, but has dropped to a 17 per cent share.
Carrier Billing Hasn’t Gone Away — Here Is How It’s Helping Companies Make Money On Mobile
Business Insider
The biggest question app developers are facing today is how to get paid for their apps and content. In particular they face two challenges: how to make purchasing on mobile easy enough so that people will buy their app and in-app content, and how to enable people to make payments in markets where many do not have credit cards. One answer is carrier billing.
Global News Round-up – These articles are not written by MEF and do not represent any views of individuals, members or the organisation.
