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Find out the week’s top mobile stories from around the world. This week.. Why mobile messaging can improve the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, China to Ban Collection of ‘Irrelevant’ Personal Data By Mobile Apps, why advertisers should be mad for mobile games in 2021 and much more…

Why mobile messaging can improve the COVID-19 vaccine rollout

IT Brief

Australia has a plan to ensure 80% of its population are vaccinated by October 2021. Stage 1B of Australia’s coronavirus vaccination program is rolling out this week, with about 6 million people eligible to receive their first doses. New Zealand is now three and a half weeks into its programme, with 90% of frontline workers vaccinated. As the programme ramps up, it expects to vaccinate 20,000 citizens per day.

However, for this to work, governments on both sides of the Tasman will need to work closely with healthcare providers to deliver communications to build and maintain citizen trust in the integrity of the process. Australia and New Zealand also have the advantage of learning from other markets like the US and UK, where citizen vaccination programs are well underway.

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China to Ban Collection of ‘Irrelevant’ Personal Data By Mobile Apps

Regulation Asia

Under new guidelines, mobile apps cannot deny users access to their services if users refuse to share unnecessary personal information.

The CAC (Cyberspace Administration of China) will prohibit mobile apps from requesting and collecting personal data from users to offer services outside their business scope, starting from 1 May.

Under new regulatory guidelines, 39 common types of mobile apps will be required to request, collect and use only “necessary personal information” relating to their product offerings. Collecting personal data outside the apps’ core business will be banned.

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Mobile advertising trends: Google leads in scale, while Facebook dominates quality

Net Imperative

Google and Facebook continue to dominate globally as the top two media sources in mobile advertising, especially in terms of user retention and in-app purchasing, according to new research.

AppsFlyer, the global attribution leader, today released the 12th edition of its Performance Index, ranking the top media sources in mobile advertising. In this edition, Google extended its lead over Facebook at the top of the Retention Index’s Universal Power Ranking: from 69 vs. 68 power ranking score in Index 11 (covering the first half of 2020) to 69 vs. 64 in Index 12 (covering the second half of 2020). For the 12th edition, AppsFlyer analysed 580 media sources, 29 billion installs, and over 16,000 apps.

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Why advertisers should be mad for mobile games in 2021

Campaign

“The gaming audience today is as diverse as humanity itself,” is the modest claim of Jon Cooke, director of global advertisers and agencies at MoPub, Twitter’s monetisation platform for mobile app publishers. “2.6 million people will play a mobile game this year and they include everyone: me, you, your mother, your millennial sister, your aunt, your uncle.”

Peter Jacobs, client partner at DGame, Dentsu’s gaming specialists, added: “It’s rich territory for brands who want to speak to all different types of audiences. Even the eSports fans who might have built their own PC or got the latest consoles are still snacking games on mobile as well.”

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Cybercrime worries on the increase, but Africa’s mobile users loath to leave WhatsApp

Africa News

Africa’s mobile users are increasingly concerned about the mobile risks and the potential for digital identity theft; however, this is not stopping them from using their favourite messaging platforms and applications.

This emerged in new research carried out by KnowBe4 (www.KnowBe4.com) among over 700 smartphone users in Nigeria, Mauritius, Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Ghana, Morocco and Botswana.

The KnowBe4 Mobile Users in Africa survey gauged the opinions of Africa’s mobile users on the recent decision by WhatsApp to update their terms and conditions, sharing metadata with the rest of the Facebook group of companies. The survey found that not only did the majority of the respondents across Africa intend to continue using WhatsApp; but also, that their favourite alternative to WhatsApp was Facebook Messenger.

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T-Mobile Completes Spam Prevention Rollout, Now Authenticates Calls From 98% of Wireless Users

MacRumours

T-Mobile today announced that it is the first U.S. wireless provider that has managed to complete deals with all wireless networks to implement full number spoofing and spam call protection for customers.

With these partnerships in place, T-Mobile has completed its implementation of the STIR/SHAKEN standards that are in place to combat illegal caller ID spoofing. T-Mobile is now able to authenticate calls with wireless and network providers that represent 98 percent of wireless customers in the United States.

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TikTok owner ByteDance steps up push into gaming

FT

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance is on a spending spree to expand beyond its blockbuster video app into gaming, where it is taking on the world’s largest gaming company, Tencent. ByteDance began buying up small gaming companies in 2017, but on Monday it paid a reported $4bn to buy Moonton, a Shanghai-based studio set up by a former Tencent staffer, giving it a tent-pole franchise, Mobile Legends.

The company has also been trying to poach developers from rivals, offering them salary increases of 30-50 per cent, according to three games developers at Tencent and NetEase, who added that most of their colleagues had also been approached by headhunters for ByteDance over the past two years.

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How the Best in Banking Are Marketing Their Mobile Apps

Financial Brand

Everyone knows that the pandemic propelled digital banking to a new level. Less is known about the approaches financial marketers are taking to promote their institution’s mobile apps. Those efforts are vital given how competitive the market has become. Here’s what a wide range of institutions are doing to attract consumers’ attention, with suggestions for the most effective approaches.

2020 turned a spotlight on the need to meet consumers’ banking needs digitally. Various sources have highlighted the dramatic impact of this trend. One study, conducted by PYMNTS.com and Entersekt, reported an eye-popping 200% jump in mobile banking use since the start of the pandemic.

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5G device trends: mmWave, standalone, IoT gain ground

Light Reading

Although much of the 5G industry’s focus so far has centered on smartphones, new research from the Global Certification Forum (GCF) indicates that roughly one-fourth of all 5G device types are tablets, IoT devices and other gadgets beyond smartphones

Among other takeaways from the GCF’s new report: The number of 5G devices supporting millimeter wave (mmWave) transmissions is increasing. And the number of 5G devices that can support the standalone version of the technology is also growing.

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MEF