With 5.2 billion of the world’s 6.8 billion mobile subscribers in the developing world, handset manufacturers and developers such as Nokia, Ericsson, Facebook and Mozilla, are renewing their efforts to connect and cater to emerging market consumers. The recently released  “Next Mobile Frontier’ report from mobile marketing expert and MEF member Upstream, polled the views of a representative sample of 4,504 consumers in Brazil, China, India, Nigeria and Vietnam in conjunction with Ovum, and finds that although the majority of consumers in these regions use Android devices because of their accessibility, Apple is actually the most coveted mobile brand in the developing world.

On publication of the report CEO of Upstream Marco Veremis commented: “The race to emerging market consumers is truly underway after several announcements from handset manufacturers, content providers and notably Facebook – all of who are developing devices or mobile content specifically for consumers in these regions. However, blindly approaching new markets without obtaining granular insights into what people in these regions actually want and acknowledging what is important to them will lead to challenges along the way. Only when each player truly understands the audience of each region – being able to answer the questions of ‘what’s affordable’, ‘what content do consumers want’ and ‘what functionality is preferred’ – will they be able to connect with the consumers they are trying to reach”.

See the full press release on Upstream’s website, and follow them on Twitter.