Top 10 mobile phone market trends

In the recent past, mobile marketing has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. People have been annoyed by constant tele-marketing calls and SMS announcing all sort of products and offers which have been flooding people's inbox.

The problem has been so acute that TRAI, the telecom industry regulator, came up with very harsh regulations to check the menace.

However all this is set to change, partially because of regulations and also because of technology advancement and changing user behavior.

Mobile marketing association (MMA), the industry body of the mobile marketing industry, has come up with its predictions on top 10 trends in the industry in Asia Pacific.

MMA is very bullish about the prospects of the mobile marketing industry and its positive impact on mobile consumers.

Rohit Dadwal, managing director, MMA Asia Pacific, says, "Recent industry reports from InMobi and Synovate have revealed that consumers are showing a greater inclination towards receiving mobile advertising and marketing messages."

He adds, "The global mobile advertising market is expected to grow to $13 to $14 billion in 2011 and Asia Pacific is expected to bring in the majority of this revenue followed by North America and Europe".

Here are the MMA's top ten trends for 2011:

Trend 1: Permission-based marketing
The industry is expected to switch to permission-based marketing that will help overcome the perception that mobile advertising is nothing but spam. This will lead to personalization, increasing the effectiveness and credibility of the mobile media as a marketing channel.
Mobile will be the only truly conversational and measurable medium that can lead to an actual, real-time increase in business-to-consumer transactions.

Trend 2: Application-based value added services
Application-based services revenues will become bigger than operator driven advertisement revenues. These services will help create mobile inventory and enable greater mobile advertisement spend.

MMA is of the opinion that operators should take a step back from establishing their own app stores and concentrate on enabling more converged devices like tablets.

Trend 3: Free SMS, video and phone calls
Free SMS, video and free phone calls will be available across devices – Applications like WhatsApp and Viber are already allowing free SMS and calls from mobile devices. More such applications will be entering the market making these basic mobile features available free of cost across devices.

Trend 4: Windows Phone 7
The re-birth of Windows Phone 7 – the new and relatively strict hardware specifications introduced by Microsoft - is geared towards providing a universal user experience much like Research In Motion (RIM) and Apple.

This will make it easier for publishers to make advertisements based on uniform specifications. Windows Phone 7 will further fuel the growth of mobile internet and advertising.

Trend 5: Apps will loose popularity
A lot has been said about how applications are expected to peak in 2013 and have already shown signs of slowing down. Though the new HTML offers great opportunities, apps and app stores continue to rule mobile content.

The availability of basic functions of an app even without an active or stable data connection combined with the high level of usability and engagement offered by app stores make it a much more appealing option for customers.

However, the fact that apps are device specific and limit penetration offers opportunities for experimentation that might lead to a decline in their popularity over the coming years.

Trend 6: Location-Based Services
The Location-Based Services (LBS) and Augmented Reality (AR) will be the leading integrated mobile technology in the market. The proliferation of GPS phones with digital compasses has already given rise to a series of location-based AR software platforms and applications.

The combination of AR with LBS allows for graphic content related to the position of the user to be overlaid in real-time onto camera images taken by the phone. This makes for one of the most intuitive user interface currently available on mobile and also makes the consumption of location-based information a lot more fun. Such specific targeting will not only fuel ad spend but also transactions.

Trend 7: Mobile micro payments
Mobile micropayments will allow customers to pay from their ‘electronic wallets' rather than ATM cards. The electronic payment industry is growing rapidly and provides significant opportunities for all electronic payment channels including those on mobile platforms.

In developing countries like India mobile banking services can address a service gap that is critical to their development. The key advantage of the introduction of mobile payment will be quick transactions, which can enable ads to generate revenue instantaneously.

Trend 8: Mobile blogging
As mobile phones become more sophisticated and feature-rich, they are increasingly being used as a replacement for computers. With the introduction and adoption of tablet devices, the consumers now have greater speed, connectivity and battery life in their mobile devices.

Several writers/bloggers are already using these devices to pen down their thoughts. These blogs can become the driver of mobile advertisements. Mobile devices are fast becoming the preferred travel gadget for professionals and have created opportunities for the development of a whole new set of user applications.

Trend 9: Smartphones and mobile internet advertising
It is expected that by 2011 over 85 per cent of handsets shipped globally will have browser capabilities. The relatively large growth in smartphones combined with their superior user interface will continue to encourage more people to access conventional websites on their mobile handsets.

Business-to-consumer applications can be delivered using conventional Web tools as well as Web adaptation tools.

As smartphone penetration increases, more users will possess the technology to view richer content on their mobile devices making the medium extremely useful for marketers.

Trend 10: 3D technology
3D technology is gaining popularity among device manufacturers . Mobile manufacturers have also experimented with the technology and Spice Mobility in India has already introduced a phone with 3D capabilities.

Manufacturers still have a long way to go in terms of creating a sophisticated 3D mobile device but the market will see a lot more experimentation in 3D phones in the coming year.

The technology will lead to the development of new content and advertising avenues.